Transcript Ecosystems Everything is Connected (Section 4.1)

Bellringer
• “When we try to pick out anything by
itself, we find it hitched to everything
else in the universe.” –John Muir
(naturalist, writer, and founder of the
Sierra Club)
• What do you think John Muir meant?
• How are humans “hitched to
everything else”?
Ecosystems: Everything
is Connected
Section 4.1
Objectives:
1. Define the components of an
ecosystem.
2. Describe the interaction of
matter and energy among
food chains and food webs.
Components of an
Ecosystem
• Connections Web
• Ecosystem: all of the organisms living
in an area + their physical environment.
• Biotic vs. abiotic (language skills)
• All the living and once-living organisms
are biotic factors. (Identify on our web.)
• Non-living parts of the ecosystem
(abiotic factors) are things like air,
water, temperature, light, and rocks.
(Identify on our web.)
Ecosystem Levels
• Biosphere
• Ecosystem
• Community – a group of various
species that live in the same place at the
same time and interact with each other
• Population – all members of the same
species that live in the same place at the
same time
• Organism – an individual living thing
Levels get larger as
you go “up the ladder”.
Explain the connection of each
level to the preceding level.
• Species: A group of organisms that are
closely related and can produce fertile
offspring.
• Habitat: the place where an organism
lives
• White Plains Analogy
#28 – Connections Web
Assignment 
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Draw a possible connections web of
an ecosystem containing the
following organisms. (Include biotic
and abiotic factors.) Describe at least
3 interactions in detail.
Honeybees
Sunflowers
Earthworms
Red-winged blackbirds
Moles