What is ecology?Ecology is the scientific study of interactions of organisms with one another and with the physical and chemical environment. The science of ecology mainly involves research on the natural world.[1] Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as the precipitaion and temperature, also known as the climate. The rainshadow affect plays a role in the classification of different climates. The rainshadow affect is when air flows over a mountain range, and it goes over the top. When air rises, it will start to cool. If the air has a lot of moisture in it when it cools, some of these moisture in the air will start to condense. It will start to rain as the air tries to climb over the mountain range. Once it passes the crest of the mountain range, it will start to sink down the back side of the mountain. Once it reaches the crest, it will no longer need to rise upwards, so the rain will stop and start to sink. As air sinks, it will be dropping in elevation and will start to get warm. This will result in a warmer and drier air mass. One side of the mountain will be wet due to the rain, and the other be warm and the air will start to dry.[2] This can create the biome savannah in one side and a tropical forest in the other side. The sun is also an important factor since the closer a biome is the equater, the more direct sunlight it will recieve. This is also why deserts are hot and dry. Community interactions that can occur in an ecosystem is competition or predator prey. Competition can occur between members of different species. It is started when populations become crowded and struggle with another organism for food, water, space, sunlight, etc. Predator prey is the regulation of a population by predation takes place within a predator-prey relationship. Symbiosis is the ecological relationship between two or more organisms living closely together with some form of feeding relationship involved. The three main symbiotic relationships are Mutualism, Commensalism, and Parasitism. [3] Mutualism is a beneficial relationship to both partners of different species living together. Commensalism is the association of two or more partners living together, where only one benefits from the partnership and the other remains unharmed. Parasitism is beneficial to one, and harmful to the other.[4]
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Emperor Newt's EcosystemThe type of biome that the Emperor Newt prefers is tropical rainforest. The prefer aquatic ecosystems and its habitat is near water for reproduction but they are also found on dry grasslands. In an average year in a tropical rain forest, the climate is very humid because of all the rainfall, which amounts to about 250 cm per year. The rain forest has lots of rain because it is very hot and wet. This climate is found near the equator.[5] The average temperature of a rain forest is about 77° Fahrenheit. The rain forest is about the same temperature year round.[6] This salamander is a secondary consumer, meaning Secondary consumers are animals the eat herbivores. For example, snakes are secondary consumers because they eat rabbits (herbivores), which only eat grass.[7] A niche is is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in an ecosystem. The Emperor Newt's niche in an ecosystem is to consume small invertebrates and compete with other animals that also hunt for invertebrates. The organisms that salamanders interact with is caecillians and mostly frogs, since they help one another find food that both eat.
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