Ecology – or, you, me, the bees, the trees and everything in between
Ecology is the study of the world we live in and everything around us. More specifically, it is the interaction of living organisms with each other and the nonliving parts of the environment, such as land, water, and air. The world as a whole is made up of several portions where life exists that make up the biosphere. Within the biosphere are countless ecosystems, or the entirety of the living organisms and their nonliving or physical environment within a particular place.
The living organisms, whether animal, plant, bacteria or otherwise, are the biotic factors in the ecosystem that affect each other. Their nonliving companions and surroundings, like rocks, temperature, nutrient availability, wind, or humidity, make up the abiotic factors in the ecosystem.
Wherever I May Roam, There’s No Place Like Biome
Several ecosystems together make up a biome when the ecosystems have a similar climate and similar populations of one or several species that assemble and dominate in a community or communities within that one area. The climate is considered the same based on a measurement of the average, yearly temperature and precipitation of the region. Several factors go into determining the climate of a region. These include the amount of sunlight that hits the angle of the Earth for that region, or the latitude of the location – whether it is in the tropics, in the polar regions, whether north or south, or in between in the temperate regions, which have changes in the seasons, like New York. Other factors include the how the wind and ocean currents rise with heat and sink with the cool, how atmospheric gases carry heat, and how all that may cause precipitation, as well as how the shape and elevation of landmasses may affect the flow of the wind, oceans and precipitation. Examples of major biomes in the world are the tropical rain or dry forest, the desert, and temperate grassland, forest, woodland and shrubland. Ecosystems, and therefore biomes on the larger scale, change all the time in response to natural and human disturbances. With these changes, the organisms within them change too. When one type dies out, new ones move in, causing further changes in the community.
Where It’s At: The Habitat
To an individual organism, the small picture is key; where it lives and the biotic and abiotic factors that make up its world are called its habitat. Within this habitat, the organism has a role to fill, called its niche. This is the place or role it occupies with the other organisms in their shared environment, how it uses the conditions of that environment and interacts with the other organisms. This includes its place on the food chain, how it gets food, and at what temperature it can survive.
The place the organism rests in the food chain or in a food web is called its trophic level. Most organisms are either producers of food or consumers of food in a food chain. Each consumer depends on the trophic level below it for energy. Most producers complete their life cycles, then die and decompose. Another trophic level in the food chain or the lowly decomposers, which when they die convert their dead plant matter to detritus, which is eaten by detritivores, such as sandhoppers. The detritivores are in turn eaten by smelt and other small fish. Some of those consumers will also eat detritus directly.
Community, Competition, Symbiosis, Predator (not the video game)
All organisms need resources to survive. These include food, water, light, and space, or as humans put it: food, clothing, shelter. When one or more species attempt to use the same resources in the same place at the same time, competition occurs. Within a habitat, each species has its own niche. No two species can have the same niche in the same habitat at the same time. Some species are predators, or those that do the capturing and eating, while others are prey, the captured and eaten, and of course, some are both. Some species live closely with others in symbiosis, which comes in three different forms. The first, and most pleasant, is mutualism, where the relationship is mutually beneficial, like flowers and bees that help each other live and reproduce. The second, still not harmful, though perhaps uncomfortable for some, is commensalism. One of the organisms benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed. The discomfort comes in, at least in my imagination, by the example from our textbook of barnacles on whales. The barnacle gets a free ride and is dragged through the water and the nutrients in it. The whale is unharmed, but it sounds like it might be itchy. The last, and the nasty one, is parasitism, where one organism lives on or inside the other organism, and harms it. The parasite gains all or most of its nutrition to live this way, and the host organism gets very sick and is harmed.
[Information for and some examples in the above mostly from the class textbook.)
The Ecology of the Blue-Ringed Octopus
Blue-ringed octopi, the Hapalochlaena maculosa, can be found only in the temperate waters of southern Australia, from southern Western Australia to eastern Victoria at depths ranging from 0-50 meters. The Hapalochlaena lunulata variety can be found in shallow reefs and tide pools from northern Australia to Japan, including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Philippines, and Indonesia and as far west as Sri Lanka at depths ranging from 0-20 meters. The temperature of these waters varies depending on the season.
Feeding Behavior, Being Fed On
Blue-ringed octopi act as predators to and consumers of small crabs, hermit crabs, and shrimp that the organism hunts during the day. The blue-ringed octopus feeds primarily on these crabs and mollusks, ambushing from behind and enveloping prey with its eight arms.
The octopus secretes two types of venom from two separate venom glands, which is mixed with its saliva and expelled into the water or deposited when the octopus bites the prey or its predator. It uses one venom to hunt and the other to protect itself against predators. When used against its prey and the prey dies, the octopus begins consuming it with its powerful beak-like mouth.
Using its bird-like beak, the octopus bites a hole through its victim’s shell to inject the toxic saliva. With its arms and beak, the octopus tears soft pieces from the prey, sucking the rest of the meat from the shell once it becomes partially digested by the saliva.
The blue-ringed octopus fills the role of prey in its habitat for such organisms as sharks, snappers, moray eels and groper. The octopus attempts to avoid filling the role of food in these organisms’ trophic level by taking shelters in old shells and rocky holes after and before hunting. These shells act as a valuable source of protection, though it is hard to imagine that it makes much of a difference in the end, since the blue-ringed octopus is so small in size compared to sharks and even snappers. [Source for this paragraph: “Blue Ringed Octopus Facts,” Animals Time, Copyright 2014, Accessed June 15, 2014, http://animalstime.com/blue-ringed-octopus-facts-top-10-facts-about-blue-ringed-octopuses/]
The B.R.O.: a bro to bacteria, or symBROisis
The production of the blue-ringed octopus’s toxin comes as a result of a symbiotic relationship that it has with colonies of bacteria that live inside it. These bacteria produce the tetrodotoxin in a relationship typical of mutualism. The octopus evolved to the point where it itself is not affected at all by the toxin, yet it certainly benefits from it. The bacteria, of course, have a home or space, an important resource for its survival, within the blue-ringed octopus.
[Sources for b.r.o. ecology, unless otherwise noted:
"Blue-ringed Octopuses, Hapalochlaena maculosa ~ MarineBio.org." MarineBio Conservation Society. http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=403. Accessed June 15, 2014. Last update: 1/14/2013.
and
“Nature: Animal Guide: Blue-Ringed Octopus,” PBS/Nature website, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/interactives-extras/animal-guides/animal-guide-blue-ringed-octopus/2177/, Accessed June 15, 2014. Copyright 2014.]
Ecology is the study of the world we live in and everything around us. More specifically, it is the interaction of living organisms with each other and the nonliving parts of the environment, such as land, water, and air. The world as a whole is made up of several portions where life exists that make up the biosphere. Within the biosphere are countless ecosystems, or the entirety of the living organisms and their nonliving or physical environment within a particular place.
The living organisms, whether animal, plant, bacteria or otherwise, are the biotic factors in the ecosystem that affect each other. Their nonliving companions and surroundings, like rocks, temperature, nutrient availability, wind, or humidity, make up the abiotic factors in the ecosystem.
Wherever I May Roam, There’s No Place Like Biome
Several ecosystems together make up a biome when the ecosystems have a similar climate and similar populations of one or several species that assemble and dominate in a community or communities within that one area. The climate is considered the same based on a measurement of the average, yearly temperature and precipitation of the region. Several factors go into determining the climate of a region. These include the amount of sunlight that hits the angle of the Earth for that region, or the latitude of the location – whether it is in the tropics, in the polar regions, whether north or south, or in between in the temperate regions, which have changes in the seasons, like New York. Other factors include the how the wind and ocean currents rise with heat and sink with the cool, how atmospheric gases carry heat, and how all that may cause precipitation, as well as how the shape and elevation of landmasses may affect the flow of the wind, oceans and precipitation. Examples of major biomes in the world are the tropical rain or dry forest, the desert, and temperate grassland, forest, woodland and shrubland. Ecosystems, and therefore biomes on the larger scale, change all the time in response to natural and human disturbances. With these changes, the organisms within them change too. When one type dies out, new ones move in, causing further changes in the community.
Where It’s At: The Habitat
To an individual organism, the small picture is key; where it lives and the biotic and abiotic factors that make up its world are called its habitat. Within this habitat, the organism has a role to fill, called its niche. This is the place or role it occupies with the other organisms in their shared environment, how it uses the conditions of that environment and interacts with the other organisms. This includes its place on the food chain, how it gets food, and at what temperature it can survive.
The place the organism rests in the food chain or in a food web is called its trophic level. Most organisms are either producers of food or consumers of food in a food chain. Each consumer depends on the trophic level below it for energy. Most producers complete their life cycles, then die and decompose. Another trophic level in the food chain or the lowly decomposers, which when they die convert their dead plant matter to detritus, which is eaten by detritivores, such as sandhoppers. The detritivores are in turn eaten by smelt and other small fish. Some of those consumers will also eat detritus directly.
Community, Competition, Symbiosis, Predator (not the video game)
All organisms need resources to survive. These include food, water, light, and space, or as humans put it: food, clothing, shelter. When one or more species attempt to use the same resources in the same place at the same time, competition occurs. Within a habitat, each species has its own niche. No two species can have the same niche in the same habitat at the same time. Some species are predators, or those that do the capturing and eating, while others are prey, the captured and eaten, and of course, some are both. Some species live closely with others in symbiosis, which comes in three different forms. The first, and most pleasant, is mutualism, where the relationship is mutually beneficial, like flowers and bees that help each other live and reproduce. The second, still not harmful, though perhaps uncomfortable for some, is commensalism. One of the organisms benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed. The discomfort comes in, at least in my imagination, by the example from our textbook of barnacles on whales. The barnacle gets a free ride and is dragged through the water and the nutrients in it. The whale is unharmed, but it sounds like it might be itchy. The last, and the nasty one, is parasitism, where one organism lives on or inside the other organism, and harms it. The parasite gains all or most of its nutrition to live this way, and the host organism gets very sick and is harmed.
[Information for and some examples in the above mostly from the class textbook.)
The Ecology of the Blue-Ringed Octopus
Blue-ringed octopi, the Hapalochlaena maculosa, can be found only in the temperate waters of southern Australia, from southern Western Australia to eastern Victoria at depths ranging from 0-50 meters. The Hapalochlaena lunulata variety can be found in shallow reefs and tide pools from northern Australia to Japan, including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Philippines, and Indonesia and as far west as Sri Lanka at depths ranging from 0-20 meters. The temperature of these waters varies depending on the season.
Feeding Behavior, Being Fed On
Blue-ringed octopi act as predators to and consumers of small crabs, hermit crabs, and shrimp that the organism hunts during the day. The blue-ringed octopus feeds primarily on these crabs and mollusks, ambushing from behind and enveloping prey with its eight arms.
The octopus secretes two types of venom from two separate venom glands, which is mixed with its saliva and expelled into the water or deposited when the octopus bites the prey or its predator. It uses one venom to hunt and the other to protect itself against predators. When used against its prey and the prey dies, the octopus begins consuming it with its powerful beak-like mouth.
Using its bird-like beak, the octopus bites a hole through its victim’s shell to inject the toxic saliva. With its arms and beak, the octopus tears soft pieces from the prey, sucking the rest of the meat from the shell once it becomes partially digested by the saliva.
The blue-ringed octopus fills the role of prey in its habitat for such organisms as sharks, snappers, moray eels and groper. The octopus attempts to avoid filling the role of food in these organisms’ trophic level by taking shelters in old shells and rocky holes after and before hunting. These shells act as a valuable source of protection, though it is hard to imagine that it makes much of a difference in the end, since the blue-ringed octopus is so small in size compared to sharks and even snappers. [Source for this paragraph: “Blue Ringed Octopus Facts,” Animals Time, Copyright 2014, Accessed June 15, 2014, http://animalstime.com/blue-ringed-octopus-facts-top-10-facts-about-blue-ringed-octopuses/]
The B.R.O.: a bro to bacteria, or symBROisis
The production of the blue-ringed octopus’s toxin comes as a result of a symbiotic relationship that it has with colonies of bacteria that live inside it. These bacteria produce the tetrodotoxin in a relationship typical of mutualism. The octopus evolved to the point where it itself is not affected at all by the toxin, yet it certainly benefits from it. The bacteria, of course, have a home or space, an important resource for its survival, within the blue-ringed octopus.
[Sources for b.r.o. ecology, unless otherwise noted:
"Blue-ringed Octopuses, Hapalochlaena maculosa ~ MarineBio.org." MarineBio Conservation Society. http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=403. Accessed June 15, 2014. Last update: 1/14/2013.
and
“Nature: Animal Guide: Blue-Ringed Octopus,” PBS/Nature website, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/interactives-extras/animal-guides/animal-guide-blue-ringed-octopus/2177/, Accessed June 15, 2014. Copyright 2014.]
Map Indicating Climates (Tropics, Temperate and Polar (here, Frigid) Zones)
[Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropics#mediaviewer/File:World_map_indicating_tropics_and_subtropics.png]