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What is Ecology?
The study of the interactions of organism with their physical and biological environment and how this affect the organism's distribution and abundance.
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Functional Biology?
The study of the functions of an environment( e.g. reproduction, cellar and molecular processes, locomotion, feeding, respiration, and other aspects of metabolism.
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Blue Mussels
- Mytilus edulis
- epibenthic
- live slong the coast
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Experiment: took big sections 9 quadrants of pasture in Minnesota and each quadrant gets assigned a different number of plants, let it grow, there was a drought, and the biomass was measured.
- The American slough grass, purple locoweed, hoary alyssum, ball cactus, and Indian rice grass.
- concluded that diversity lead to higher production. Biodiversity is effective for number of plants.
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Historical Background?
- earlier marine biologists- natural philosopher
- Aristotle "ladder of life"categorize based on relatedness
- ( they made observations of behavior and form of shore organisms)
- Linnaeus- two name Latin system
- George Cuvier - body plan and structure classification ( vertebra, Radiata, Mollusca, and Articula
- Leif Erickson, columbus, ferdinand magellan, and Arab traders
- Captain Cook- bringing back marine life
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Edward Forbes?
- Azoic Hypothesis- testable question.
- used dredge to attempt to prove the hypothesis. a device that is dropped down and is used to catch marine life. Falsified by Micheal Sars
- Possibilities for the dredge not coming back up with dredge:
- size
- pressure differences
- discrete areas cannot extrapolate for entirety of oceans
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What did Charles Darwin propose?
- proposed that there was a balance between the growth of the island initailly, at first, abd then the island sinking. relationship between the island sinking and the coral is growing,l that produced the atoll.
- The older coral rifts are in the lagoon and deeper than the younger ones.
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Atoll
- A series or ring of little island and coral rifts with a lagoon in the middle
- a horseshoe circular array of island capping a coral reef system. And, it is perched around an oceanic volcanic seamount.
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zooxanthellae
- symbiotic algae that does photosynthesis inside of the coral and provides most of its food internally. Their relationship is optimal at certain temperatures and ph. thus climate changes interrupt this relationship and cause bleaching of the coral reefs.
- lived in the tentacles of coral
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Thomson and Murray
the challenger. got people interested by contributions to oceanic exploration, new species collections , and important voyages
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facts about the Atlantic and Pacific
- Pacific
- largest, thus greatest surface area
- Atlantic
- most marginal sea
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factors that increase salinity?
- and evaporation and sea-ice formation. ice is made from the fresh water concentrating the salt in the ocean more.
- run off and precipitation decreases the salinity.
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Forchhammers principle
ratio among major elements are constant over all the ocean even though salinity varies. because residence time is much greater than time to mix evenly throughout ocean by the currents.
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front
region where two kinds of water encounter. They will not mix.
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coriolis Effect
- movement of fluids in relation to the earth beneath.fluids are deflected by the rotation of the earth. deflection of a moving object when viewed in a rotating reference frame. Objects at the equator have the fastest eastward velocity. there is not deflection at the equator.
- C.E. causes movement of water at an angle to the wind.
- the water beneath is pulled to the right of the water above
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Coriolis effect in the North and South
in the north water is deflected to the right and in the south water is deflected to the left.
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Ekman Spiral
Shifting of water movement. friction binds water together and all moves to the right in the northern hemisphere
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Wind Drive Circulation
- driven by heating of air at the equator, that rises and move to higher latitudes then falls and produces circular cells.
- Westerlies- wind blowing from the west
- Trade winds blowing toward the west.
- rotation tends to concentrate boundary currents on the west sides of oceans- create concentrated currents like the gulf stream
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gyres
cyclonic flow created by a combination of wind systems and shaped of the ocean basins.
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doldrum
Area where the prevailing winds are calm
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Fetch
The distance the wind blows over the surface of the water
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three factor that affect the size and the energy of a wave
- length of time that the wind has been blowing
- how far the wave as traveled - determined by the fetch
- how strongly the wind is blowing
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Two types of waves?
- Constructive and Destructive
- Con- build up beaches, are calm, long wavelength and low height
- Des- stormy, powerful, long winds, erode coasts, short wavelength, high frequency,
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Swash
- When a wave breaks and water is washed up on the beach
- Constructive- swash>backwash
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Backwash
- When the water runs back down into the ocean.
- when the swash returns
- Destructive- backwash >swash
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Berm
High piles of sand with vegetation (upland plants)that is only found in the summer profile of the beach.
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Tides
- Two tides occur every day.
- Coastal area experience two high and two low tides every roughly 24 hours
- Tides are cause by the gravitational attraction between the ocean moon and sun.
- Moon has more of an effect on the tide than the sun.
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fjord
- type of estuary
- it has restricted circulation a d sills that were created by glacier that melted and dropped off the sediments that it was carrying
- The restricited circulation due to the sill, limits the life that can live in fjords
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barnacle
- Balanus Balanoides
- type of suspension feeders
- swims to surface where it spends the rest of its life
- it secretes calcium carbonate shell
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humpback whale
Megaptera Novaeanglia
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parasitism
- reduce damage to host
- usually attack the reproductive system because of the nutrients, cells, and blood supply
- involve complex life cycles
- There are ectoo and endo parasites
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territoriality
maintenance of home range and its defense against intruders
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Nemo (Clown fish)
- Amphiprion percula
- Amphiprion frenatus
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Cleaner wrasse
- live near coral reefs and remove ectoparasities from a number of species of fish
- There are intruders that look like the wrasse and attack fish
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mutualism
Association between organism in which everyone benefits
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Commensalism
- One species requires a benefit from another but does not return it.
- e.g. a spoon worm borrowing a hole and fish living in it
- nemo cleaning themselves on the anemone
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spoon worm - Echiurians
Urechis caupo
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Predation
consumption of one species by another
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fecundidty
- fertility
- rapid reproduction rate
- when prey population has a rapid recovery rate
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predation effects are reduced by
- fecundity
- other factors like living environmental necessities
- escape from predation
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5 types of escape from predation
- mechanical defense (fixed or inducible) or warning coloration (chemical)
- crypsis color form
- refuge time ( nocturnal, llow tide feeding)
- refuge habitat
- escape behavior
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Optimal predator models
- intermediate is the best
- predator receives the best energy reward
- exeperiement with (carcinus maenas)
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Spartina alterniflora
- halophyte plants that tolerate salty conditions
- they have pores that secrete salt from the water.
- grow in peat
- Peat- decomposed plant material
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Fundulus heteroclitus
- meno
- eat detritus ( debris)
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mudsmail
illyanasaa obsoleta
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March mussle
- semi funal
- Geukensia demissa
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consequences of competition
- extinction- typically local, habitat shift
- coexistence - "niche shift" character displacement. "evolution of shift in morphology or behavior
- variable environment" paradox of the plankton"
- nnutrient limitation but still coexist
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metapopulation
- a group of interconnected subpopulations
- sources and sinks
- aggregations on large scales
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