环境科学概论教学课件（第二讲）.ppt

* Summary Everything that affects an organism during its lifetime is collectively known as its environment. The environment of an organism can be divided into biotic (living) and abiotic (nonliving) components. The space an organism occupies is known as its habitat, and the role it plays in its environment is known as its niche. The niche of an organism is the result of natural selection directing the adaptation of the organism to a specific set of environmental conditions. Organisms interact with one another in a variety of ways. Predators kill and eat prey. Organisms that have the same needs compete with one another and do mutual harm, but one is usually harmed less and survives. Symbiotic relationships are those in which organisms live in physical contact with one another. Parasites live in or on another organism and derive benefit from the relationship, harming the host in the process. Commensal organisms derive benefit from another organism but do not harm the host. Mutualistic organisms both derive benefit from their relationship. A community is a set of interacting groups of organisms. Those organisms and their abiotic environment constitute an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, energy flows from producers through various trophic levels of consumers (herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers). About 90 percent of the energy is lost as it passes from one trophic level to the next. This means that the amount of biomass at higher trophic levels is usually much less than that at lower trophic levels. The sequence of organisms through which energy flows is known as a food chain. Several interconnecting food chains constitute a food web. 广东工业大学 环境科学与工程学院 * CHAPTER TWO Interactions: Environment and Organisms * Bee and sunflower * Soybean and rhizobium * Fish and coral Fish and shrimp * paddy grasshopper frog snake eagle * * OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: Identify the abiotic and biotic factors in an ecosystem. . Define niche.