Class notes
Ecology Lab Semester Notes
- Course
- BIOS 331
- Institution
- University Of Illinois - Chicago
Provides a comprehensive analysis of all notes from ecology lab lectures for an entire semester
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Lecture 1Ecology:
➔ Ecology: The study of abundance, distribution, and interactions of organisms with their
environment (abiotic and biotic)
◆ E. Haeckel (1866) coined the term ecology as the study of…
● Of the total relations of the animals both to its inorganics and to its
organics
● All those complex interrelationships referred to by Darwin as the
conditions of the “struggle for existence” (natural selection)
➔ Abiotic (physical and chemical conditions): Temperature, moisture, concentration of
gases (O2 and CO2), light intensity, etc.
➔ Biotic (interactions with other organisms): Mating, predator and prey, predation,
competition, etc.
➔ Environment in context of ecosystem:
◆ Climate
◆ Soil
◆ Herbivores
◆ Predators
◆ Plants
◆ Decomposers
➔ Abundance
◆ Population Size: Number of individuals in a population
◆ Population Density: Number of individuals per unit area
◆ Abundance changes (dynamics):
● Ex: C. 30,000 Mountain Lions in the U.S
● Not counted, but estimated
● 500 years ago, before the arrival of Europeans, there were a couple of
hundred thousands mountain lions
● Population size changes (dynamic)
● Mountain lions are only found on the western coast of the United States in
present time. In the past, they were found on the eastern coast,western
coast,etc. (basically everywhere)
➔ Dynamics
◆ Neither distribution nor abundance are static
◆ Ex: The range of Burmese python, introduced from Asia into Florida in the 1970s,
has been expanding.
● In the 1960s there were zero of the burmese pythons in Florida.
● Soldiers return from the vietnam war from Asia to the United States and
bring with them a one-foot long Burmese Python to keep as pet animals.
, ○ The python grows (to about 4 feet) in approximately 6 months and
to about 10 feet after a couple of years.
○ There are over 100,000 in Florida now
◆ Population size changes and distribution changes
➔ History and dispersal define species distribution and abundance
◆ Why no camelids in North America?
● Camelidae: camels, llamas, alpacas, vicugnas
● There are camels in Africa, Australia, South America, Asia. There are NO
camels in Europe.
● Camels originated in the United States 50 million years ago but dispersed
to South America, to Alaska, to Siberia, to Asia, and to Africa. America
lost the camel (local extinction). No camels dispersed back and populated
America.
◆ Eocene Epoch, 50 million years ago
➔ Biotic and abiotic factors influence disturbance and abundance
◆ Ex: In Africa, Tsetse Flies limit the distribution of cattle (parasitism)
● They cause fatal diseases that can kill cattle wherever they are distributed.
There is no cattle in places where there are tsetse flies.
● There are some places where their population overlaps, but it is small.
● This shows how interactions between species influence the distribution of
a species.
, ◆ Ex: Bacteria Thermus thrive in hot springs (over 70 degree C), but cannot survive
in polar regions.
● They have a range where they can occur that is defined by its net.
● The arctic microbes have nets that are widespread and are cold-adapter
with wider tolerance
● The hot spring microbes have smaller nets and are hot-adapted with
narrower tolerance.
➔ Nature is dynamic; organisms respond and interact with the environment!
◆ NATURE IS NOT STATIC! NATURE CHANGES!
◆ Nature is not an art gallery and species are not arts!
● Art doesn’t change
◆ Ex: Trilobites - 500 m years ago- 20,000 species
● 65 million years ago, there were dinosaurs
○ Meteorite (the size of Mount Everest) hit Mexico. For 10,000 years
the Earth was covered with clouds and gasses that made it hard for
sunlight to penetrate through. Plants couldn’t photosynthesize and
there was no food.
○ The dinosaurs all disappeared. Some mammals survived. The
mammals that survived were the size of mice.
● Today, there are zero trilobites
○ Today is the age of mammals!
, ➔ Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
◆ Plato (Theory of “forms”, essentialism):
● Thought the world was constant, static
● Essentialism: Everything living and nonliving has a form and that form is
its essence. This essence doesn’t change.
○ Cat is cat, dog is dog, table is table
○ Manifestations of an ideal form are “not real”: different kinds of
tables (american/chinese or big/small).
◆ What is real is the form that is the essence
● Plato’s two worlds: real (ideal) and illusionary (imperfect) world
◆ Aristotle:
● Plato’s student
● Ladder of life (inanimate objects, plants, animals, human, spiritual being
on top (birth of theology!)
◆ Idea of Fixity reigned up until Medieval age
● Bubonic plague, 14th century: 100 million died worldwide
● Europe lost 50% people!
● “God is deaf nowadays and will not hear us…” wrote a 14th century
English cleric…
● Renaissance: Birth of science and culture roughly from 1400 to 1600
➔ People and thinkers
◆ J.Hutton: Natural processes (e.g. river, erosion, temperature, light intensity,
rainfall) craft earth’s surface
● Landscape changes (based on science, has nothing to do with god)
◆ C. Lyell popularized uniformitarianism: The “same” natural processes operating
NOW operated in the PAST, everywhere, sculpted landscape
● Ex: The landscape of the Grand Canyon was designed by physical
processes due to the Colorado River
● Gradual process of changes…. contrasted the notion of (biblical
catastrophism)
◆ Lyell (geologist) - Lamarck (zoologist) - Darwin (naturalist)
◆ Moved from the idea of Fixity to Uniformitarianism (geology changes) to
Evolution (living things change)
● Species change, life evolves! Lamarck, Darwin
● Can natural processes (environments) sculpt the soft tissues of living
things? (idea of evolution)
➔ We know nature changes so how many types of dynamics are there?
◆ The 1st fact: Organisms are born and eventually die give rise to population
dynamics
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