Class notes
BIOA02 ~ Ecology Notes
- Course
- BIOA02
- Institution
- University Of Toronto (U Of T )
BIOA02 - Ecology notes
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LEC 1 ( starting March 12)INTRO TO ECOLOGY
- Study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment
Primary goal:
- Understand the distribution and abundance of organisms
Increasingly focused on human impacts
- Environments are changing more rapidly now than in the past 3.5 billion years
- Climate change/ global warming/ pollution
If organisms experience [below] they are more likely to go extinct.
- > 7 degree flux
- Regions in climatic extremes, < 15-degree range
- Small geographic range size
- Small body size
- New and constantly changing
EX: ACOUSTIC SIGNALS & NOISE POLLUTION
- Many ecological studies based on it
- Anthropogenic noise directly disturbs and affects the acoustic modality of communication
- Disturbs communication n and lives of organisms
→ Terrestrial: urban traffic, motorways, wind farms, construction, etc
→ Marine: boats, military sonar, hydroelectric dams, etc
- Animals have been observed to forage less, and have a lesser chance of capturing prey
TYPES OF ECOLOGY
Organized in levels
- Organismal (individuals)
- Population (a group of individuals)
- Community (how they interact with other organisms)
- Ecosystem (How they facilitate the movement of nutrients from different areas)
- Global (determine how they are affected by global ecology)
CONSERVATION BIOLOGY
- Synthesizes all 5 levels of ecology
- Study, preserve and restore threatened →
,Why is biodiversity important?
→ The infrastructure that supports all life
→ It contributes to:
A) Healthy environments
- Cleaner air + water
- Nature-based solutions to climate change
- Resilience to storms and flooding
B) Healthy humans
- Food security + nutrition
- Natural medicine & pharmaceuticals
- Promotes mental health + feeling connected
C) Healthy economies
- Resistance to shock (diseases)
- Recreation + tourism
- Livelihoods + job creation
What determines the distribution and abundance of organisms?
BIOGEOGRAPHY
- Study of how organisms are distributed geographically (within it there is → phytogeography:
plants, zoogeography: animals
ABIOTIC FACTORS
- Not alive
- Temperature
- Moisture
- Salinity
- Water depth
- Light availability
- Pollutants
- Influences an organism niche (a model which conceptualizes where organisms can exist/survive)
- x: temp, y: proportion of individuals
- Sensitive to climate change
BIOTIC FACTORS
- Competition
- Predation
- Disease from pathogens + parasites
,ABIOTIC + BIOTIC FACTORS
- Are dynamic
- Past influences present
- Constant flux (over geological time)
- Affects dispersal
THE WALLACE LINE
- Alfred Russel Wallace (who
co-discovered evolution + founded
the study of biodiversity) also
found this line
- Due to deep trench in the ocean
resulting in independent evolution
of either side of the line
INFLUENCE OF HUMANS
- Affect the distribution of species by
hunting, deforestation, + physically
moving organisms →
← WHEN = INVASIVE?
CASE STUDY:
- Argentine ant [Linepithema humike]
- Native to S. America & invasive around the world
- Most successful at invading Mediterranean-like
ecosystems with adequate moisture
If a modest
amount of
irrigation can
impact ant
, dispersal what about the impact of
large climate patterns on global ecology?
CLIMATE PATTERNS
- Weather: specific, short-term atmospheric conditions of temperature, precipitation, sunlight, and
wind
- Climate: prevailing, long-term weather conditions
→ occurs in relatively predictable global patterns + Coriolis effects
- Sunlight is important → insulation
- Why is the equator warm? Why are the poles cooler?
- Insulation! Sunlight travels in parallel, directly hitting the equator but hits the poles at an oblique
angle
- Hadley cell → hot air rises to a certain level in the atmosphere and drifts away and as it moves
south or north it cools and rains
SEASONALITY:
- Coriolis effects
- Regular, annual fluctuations in temperature, precipitation, or both
- Due to the tilt of the Earth
- The earth is tilted on its north-to-south axis by 23.5 degrees
- No tilt = no seasons
MOUNTAINS + OCEANS
- Broad climate patterns dedicated by insolation, air circulations, + seasonality are modified by
regional effects
- The presence of mountains can create rain shadows (lots of rain on one side but barren on the
other [RS]) + oceans have high specific heat (absorb lots of head and keeps land around cooler)
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