MODULE I
General
Ecology is the branch of biology which studies the interactions among
organisms and their environment.
It is the science that seeks to describe and explain the relationship
between living organisms and their environment
➢ According to Woodbury (1954), “Ecology is a science which
investigates organisms in relation to their environment.
➢ According to Charles Krebs (1985), “Ecology is the scientific study
of the interaction that determines the distribution and abundance of
organisms”
➢ Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist coined the term Ecology in
1866.
Ecologists strive to understand the dynamics of our surroundings and
take proper measures to conserve it if and when required.
The objectives of ecology are to study:
➢ The local and geographical distribution and abundance of organisms.
➢ The inter-relationship between organisms.
➢ The structural adaptations and functional adjustments of organisms to
their physical environment.
➢ The behaviour of organisms under natural conditions.
➢ The biological productivity (the movement of materials and energy
through living communities) of nature and its relationship with mankind.
➢ Temporal changes (change with time) in the occurrence, abundance
and activities of organisms.
➢ Conservation and management of natural resources and pollution
Ecology is describing the relationships between living organisms and their
environment.
Ecology comes from the Greek words
Oikos= House
logia= Study of Life
Study of the “house/environment” in which we live.
Levels of Organization
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a community made up of living organisms (biotic
components) and nonliving components (abiotic components) such as
air, water, and mineral soil.
Habitat
In ecology, a habitat is the type of natural environment in which a
particular species of organism lives. A species' habitat is those places
where it can find food, shelter, protection and mates for reproduction.
Niche
Niche refers to all of the interactions of a species with the other
members of its community, including competition, predation, parasitism,
and mutualism.
Community
In ecology, a community is a group or association populations of two or
more different species occupying the same geographical area and in a
particular time.
Classification of Ecology
Physiological Ecology and Behavioural Ecology: Examines adaptations of an
individual to his environment.
Population Ecology (or Auto-ecology):
Deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations
interact with the environment. It is the study of how the population sizes of
species change over time and space.
Community Ecology (or Synecology):
Deals with the relations between groups of organisms or coexisting biological
communities. It encompasses distribution, abundance, demography and
interactions between coexisting groups of organisms. Interspecific interactions
(e.g. predation) are dealt with in synecology.
Eco-system Ecology:
Studies the flows of energy and matter through the biotic and abiotic
components of eco-systems.
Landscape Ecology:
Examines the processes occurring in multiple ecosystems or very large
geographic areas and studies the relationship between the processes.
Landscape Ecology:
➢ Considers the influence of time and space on the environmental
patterns we observe and the processes that create them.
➢ 3 topics studied in landscape ecology are of particular concern:
❑ climate change
❑ land use–land cover change (LULCC)
❑ A particular type of LULCC, urbanization.
These processes are interrelated, because LULCC is driven by both
human activities (e.g., agricultural expansion and urban sprawl) and
climate change (e.g., desertification). Climate change, in turn, will affect
the way humans use landscapes.
Ecological factors
➢ The environmental factors influencing living organisms
❑ May be biotic (living) or abiotic (non-living)
Types of ecological factors:
Climatic factors, topographic factors, edaphic factors, biotic factors and
limiting factors
➢ Climatic factors:
(a) Light
(b) temperature
(c) water
(d) rainfall
(e) wind
(f) humidity
(g) atmospheric gases
(h) pH.
❑ Light plays an important role in photosynthesis, transpiration, respiration
and regulation of hormones in plants. In animals, light influences
reproduction and metabolism.
❑ Organisms prefer to conduct their activities in the temperature range 4
°C-45 °C. The biochemical effects of temperature are due to enzymes and
hormonal changes.
Temperature influences :
water uptake, mineral absorption, germination and growth in plants.
migration, hibernation and reproductive activities of animals
❑ Since all physiological processes require water, the availability of water in
an ecosystem affects distribution, growth and other activities of living
organisms.
❑ Rainfall determines the type of vegetation in a region, which in turn
influences the type of animals and birds inhabiting that region
Ecological factors Types of ecological factors (contd)
➢ Climatic factors
❑ The wind brings physical, anatomical and physiological changes to plants.
Excessive transpiration due to wind results in dwarfish plants with small leaves
and more branches.
Trees on mountains exhibit rhizome type of growth. They have prostrate
growth and long underground roots for protection against danger of uprooting.
❑ Humidity influences transpiration, absorption of water etc.
❑ Atmospheric gases like nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide are essential for
sustenance of life. But pollutants like H2S, SO2, NO2 and smoke adversely
affect the health of plants and animals.
❑ Every species can survive at an optimum pH level
➢ Topographic factors:
(a) Altitude
(b) slope and direction of mountains.
❑ An increase in altitude results in lowering of temperature, increase in wind
activity. Affects absorption of water and nutrients of plants. Winds affect
growth.
❑ Lowering in atmospheric pressure and concentration of oxygen at higher
altitudes affects animals, specially mammals.
❑ Slope and direction of mountains affect the amount of sunlight received,
rainfall wind velocity and overall climate.
➢ Edaphic factors: structure, formation and characteristics of different kinds
of soil.
❑ Soil provides mechanical anchorage to plants.
❑ Provides nutrients, essential gases and water to plants, micro-organisms
and soil animals.
✓ Soil composition (including moisture content and salinity), temperature and
pH regulate the physiological, morphological and anatomical features of these
organisms. When pH of the soil is very high, there is no vegetation.
✓ Soil organisms like bacteria, fungi and earthworms increase soil fertility.
Nitrogen fixing bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen.
➢ Biotic factors:
Interactions between living organisms (intra-specific as well as interspecific). Some
of the interactions are mutually beneficial while some benefit only one species
without harming others or by harming others. Based on the nature of
interactions, these may be classified as:
❑ Symbiosis: Two different species depend upon each other metabolically and are
thus mutually benefitted.
✓ The species are known as symbiotants.
Ex: Rhizobium bacteria and leguminous roots. The bacteria get protective space
and readymade food from the leguminous roots. The leguminous roots utilize the
fixed nitrogen in the bacteria to manufacture proteins.
❑ Commensalism: One species is benefitted while the other either benefits or
remains neutral.
✓ The members are called commensals.
Some terrestrial insects and marine animals share the nest and burrow of others
without causing any damage to them.
❑ Parasitism: There are two species, namely, the parasite and the host.
The parasite is benefitted and the host is harmed.
✓ Ex: Lice (parasite) living on animals and man (hosts), harming them
❑ Epiphytism:
Epiphytes grow on other plants but do not derive food from them. ✓
Carnivorous plants like Nepenthes grow on other plants but derive food from
insects.
❑ Competition amongst organisms when resources are limited. This leads to
survival or dominance of the fittest. Competition may be inter-specific or intra-
specific.
Limiting factors:
Denote the amount of substance that is either least abundant or overabundant
in relation to the need of the living organism.
❑ Limiting factors may be density dependent.
Ex: When food stock is limited for a given density of population, over-
population leads to scarcity of food.
❑ Limiting factors may be density independent.
These may be abiotic factors like climate, soil, wind, temperature, water, etc, or
other biotic factors.
Examples
Earthquakes or tsunamis may wipe out entire populations.
If the soil has inadequate nutrients, plants will not be sufficiently healthy to
support animal life.
Biotic factors are the most important limiting factors influencing the growth
and distribution of plants and animals.
Liebig’s Law of Minimum:
Liebig's law of the minimum, often simply called Liebig's law or the law of the
minimum, is a principle developed in agricultural science by Carl Sprengel
(1828) and later popularized by Justus von Liebig.
It states that growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the
scarcest resource (limiting factor).
The law has also been applied to biological populations and ecosystem models
for factors such as sunlight or mineral nutrients.
➢ This concept was originally applied to plant growth, where it was found that
increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not increase plant growth.
Only by increasing the amount of the limiting nutrient (the one most scarce in
relation to "need") was the growth of a plant or crop improved.
Blackman’s law of Limiting factors
“When a process is conditioned as to its rapidity by a number of separate factors,
the rate of the process is limited by the pace of the ‘slowest’ factor”
To explain this principle, Blackman gave the following illustration Suppose a leaf is
exposed to a certain light intensity which can utilize 5 mg. of CO2per hour in
photosynthesis.
If only 1 mg. of CO2 enters the leaf in an hour, the rate of photosynthesis is
limited due to CO2 factor. But as the concentration of the CO2 increases from 1
to 5 mg./hour the rate of photosynthesis is also increased along the line AB.
Any further increase in the CO2 concentration will have no effect on the rate of
photosynthesis which has become constant along the line BC. It is because the
low light intensity has become a limiting factor.
Now the rate of photosynthesis will increase further along the line BD only if the
intensity of light is also increased from low to a medium.
At point D, the medium light intensity again becomes limiting factor and the rate
of photosynthesis will again become constant along the line DE.
In the same way, at still higher light intensity an increase in CO2 will bring about
an increase in the rate of photosynthesis along the line DF.
Shelford’s law of tolerance
Organisms are limited by both the minimum and maximum of a factor, with a
range in between, including an optimum in which a species grows and reproduces
best.
Every environmental factor has two zones
(a) zone of tolerance
(b) zone of intolerance
Zone of tolerance:
Zone favourable for growth and development of an organism.
Comprises of: ➢ Optimum zone: Most favourable zone for growth and
development.
➢ Critical minimum zone: Provides the lowest limit below which growth and
development cease.
➢ Critical maximum zone: Provides the upper limit above which growth and
development cease.
Population
In Ecology, population is defined as a group of organisms of a particular
species, which breed among themselves or have the potential to do so and
generally occupy a particular space.
Rate of increase of population depends on birth rate, death rate,
immigration or emigration and all these factors are related to ecological
conditions.
Prediction about future population is very essential for assessment of use
and demand of the resources by the growing population and also to develop
strategies on how to meet this demand.
On the basis of mathematical functions, population growth rates can be
classified as:
Exponential growth
Logistic growth
Ecological balance or eco-system stability
➢ A balance between the production and consumption of each component in
the eco-system. Theories , mechanisms and models to explain the stability of
eco-system
Theory of diversity or stability:
Diverse ecosystems are more stable than ecosystems with fewer species. Logic
behind above theory: In a community with high diversity of species, loss of a
single species has a small relative effect Some facts supporting the above theory
➢ If a given species preys on several others, its population size will fluctuate
less in response to environmental variations affecting one of its preys as
compared to the situation if the species in question ate fewer prey species.
➢ Dramatic oscillations are experienced by many populations in the Arctic but
not in the far more species-rich tropics.
➢ Severe outbreaks of pest populations are observed in simplified agricultural
systems than in complex natural systems.
Homeostatic mechanism:
Homeostasis is the phenomenon by which a system can spontaneously
maintain its internal equilibrium when its environment varies.
➢ If within an eco-system, the population of a species increases significantly,
the result will be scarcity of food, leading to competition. This will lead to
death by starvation and the species population will be brought back to its
original value.
Equilibrium and non-equilibrium models:
If eco-system is disturbed by external factors, it may quickly return to its
original state by some adjustments, restoring stability. However, if it doesn’t
return to its original state, the disordered arrangement will gain stability
through
(1) functional interactions between species that act as stabilizers,
(2) disturbance patterns that interrupt adverse effects, and
(3) the stabilizing effect of integrating small-spatial-scale systems into large
landscapes.
Ecological instability
➢ When an eco-system is unable to adjust to environmental changes, it is said to be
unstable. Some causes of such instability include destruction of natural vegetation,
introduction of toxic substances like insecticides, pesticides and toxic gases.
Some examples of ecological crisis in history
➢ At the end of the Permian Period, worldwide collapse of terrestrial and marine
ecosystems resulted in major perturbation of global biogeochemical cycles and
unrivaled extinction.
The Permian–Triassic (P–Tr or P–T) extinction event, colloquially known as the Great
Dying, the End-Permian Extinction or the Great Permian Extinction, occurred about
252 Ma (million years) ago, forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic
geologic periods. It is the Earth's most severe known extinction event, with up to 96%
of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct. Some
causes of this crisis were include one or more large meteor impact events, massive
volcanism such as that of the Siberian Traps, and the ensuing coal or gas fires and
explosions, and a runaway greenhouse effect triggered by sudden release of methane
from the sea .
WHAT ARE NATURAL RESOURCES?
Resources that occur in our nature are known as
Natural Resources.
These can not be produced by our man-kind.
Examples:
1. Sun light
2. Minerals
Natural Resources can be classified into TWO categories:
[Link] resources
[Link]-Renewable resources
• Resources that can be replenished naturally in the
course of time are called Renewable Resources.
• Examples:
i. Air
ii. Water
iii. Sunlight
iv. Wind
• Resources that exist in limited supply and cannot
be replaced if they are used up are called Non-
Renewable Resources.
• Examples:
i. Oil
ii. Natural gas
iii. Coal
iv. Nuclear fuels
Some examples of ecological crisis in history
➢ The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, also known as the
Cretaceous– Tertiary (K–T) extinction, was a sudden mass extinction of some
three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, approximately 66
million years ago.
It is now generally thought that the K–Pg extinction was caused by the impact
of a massive comet or asteroid 10 to 15 km (6.2 to 9.3 mi) wide,66 million
years ago,
which devastated the global environment, mainly through a lingering impact
winter which halted photosynthesis. Other contributing factors to the
extinction may have been volcanic eruptions, climate change, and sea level
change.
Ecological crisis in present times
➢ Ozone layer hole issue
➢ Deforestation and desertification.
➢ Global warming related to greenhouse effect.
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