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SEV1. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to investigate the flow of energy and cycling of matter within an ecosystem.

LO1: Develop and use a model to compare and analyze the levels of biological organization including organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biosphere.

LO2: Develop and use a model based on the Laws of Thermodynamics to predict energy transfers
throughout an ecosystem (food chains, food webs, and trophic levels).

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Levels of Organization in a Biome Video 

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Levels of Organization in a Biome Video 

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This video will serve as a preview to the main unit of Environmental Science. It will break down the levels of organization to students before a discussion or guided note session that goes more in depth to each level of organization.

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Khan Academy Lesson for Unit Practice and Review

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Khan Academy Lesson for Unit Practice and Review

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This content can be used throughout the unit and serve as review for students or a chance for students to learn if they are absent from school. It has a full lesson on the basics of ecosystems with review questions included. I can use this as a classroom tool or a individual pace tool.

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An ecosystem consists of a community of organisms together with their physical environment.

Ecosystems can be of different sizes and can be marine, aquatic, or terrestrial. Broad categories of terrestrial ecosystems are called biomes.

In ecosystems, both matter and energy are conserved. Energy flows through the system-usually from light to heat-while matter is recycled.

Ecosystems with higher biodiversity tend to be more stable with greater resistance and resilience in the face of disturbances, or disruptive events.

Introduction

What do a tide pool on the California coast and the Amazon rainforest of South America have in common? Despite being many orders of magnitude different in size, both are examples of ecosystems -communities of organisms living together in combination with their physical environment.

As a reminder, a community consists of all the populations of all the species that live together in a particular area. The concepts of ecosystem and community are closely related-the difference is that an ecosystem includes the physical environment, while a community does not. In other words, a community is the biotic, or living, component of an ecosystem. In addition to this biotic component, the ecosystem also includes an abiotic component-the physical environment.

Ecosystems can be small, such as the tide pools found near the rocky shores of many oceans, or very large, such as the Amazon Rainforest in South America. It's basically up to the ecologist studying the ecosystem to define its boundaries in a way that makes sense for their questions of interest.

What are ecosystems like?

The short answer: incredibly diverse! Not only can ecosystems vary in size, but they can also differ in just about every imaginable biotic or abiotic feature.

Some ecosystems are marine, others freshwater, and others yet terrestrial-land based. Ocean ecosystems are most common on Earth, as oceans and the living organisms they contain cover 75% of the Earth's surface. Freshwater ecosystems are the rarest, covering only 1.8% of the Earth's surface. Terrestrial, land, ecosystems cover the remainder of Earth.

Terrestrial ecosystems can be further grouped into broad categories called biomes, based largely on climate. Examples of terrestrial biomes include tropical rain forests, savannas, deserts, coniferous forests, deciduous forests, and tundra. The map below shows the broad distribution of biomes on Earth.

Even within a biome, there can be great diversity. For example, both the Sonoran desert, on the left, and the interior of the island of Boa Vista, on the right, can be classified as deserts, but they have very different ecological communities. Many more species of plants and animals live in the Sonoran desert.

Energy and matter in ecosystems

Ecosystem ecologists are often most interested in tracing the movement of energy and matter through ecosystems.

We'll take a closer look at the movement of energy and matter when we consider food webs, networks of organisms that feed on one another, and biogeochemical cycles, the pathways taken by chemical elements as they move through the biosphere. The organisms found in an ecosystem tend to have adaptations, beneficial features arising by natural selection, that help them get energy and matter in the context of that particular ecosystem.

Before we get into details, though, let's look at the key features of how energy and matter travel through ecosystems. Both energy and matter are conserved, neither created nor destroyed, but take different routes through ecosystems:

Matter is recycled; the same atoms are reused over and over.

Energy flows through the ecosystem, usually entering as light and exiting as heat.

Matter is recycled.

Matter is recycled through Earth's ecosystems-though it may move from one ecosystem to another as it does when nutrients are washed away into a river. The same atoms are used over and over again, assembled into different chemical forms and incorporated into the bodies of different organisms.

As an example, let's see how chemical nutrients move through a terrestrial ecosystem. A land plant takes in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and other nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous, from the soil to build the molecules that make up its cells. When an animal eats the plant, it uses the plant's molecules for energy and as building material for its own cells, often rearranging atoms and molecules into new forms.

When plants and animals carry out cellular respiration-break down molecules as fuel-carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Similarly, when they excrete waste or die, their chemical compounds are used for energy and building material by bacteria and fungi. These decomposers release simple molecules back into the soil and atmosphere, where they can be taken up anew in the next round of the cycle.

Thanks to this recycling, the atoms that make up your body right now have long, unique histories. They've most likely been part of plants, animals, other people, and even dinosaurs!

Energy flow is unidirectional, or one-way.

Energy, unlike matter, cannot be recycled in ecosystems. Instead, energy flow through an ecosystem is a one-way street-generally, from light to heat.

Energy usually enters ecosystems as sunlight and is captured in chemical form by photosynthesizers like plants and algae. The energy is then passed through the ecosystem, changing forms as organisms metabolize, produce waste, eat one another, and eventually, die and decompose.

Each time energy changes forms, some of it is converted to heat. Heat still counts as energy-and thus no energy has been destroyed-but it generally can't be used as an energy source by living organisms. Ultimately, energy that entered the ecosystem as sunlight is dissipated as heat and radiated back into space.

This one-way flow of energy through ecosystems means that every ecosystem needs a constant supply of energy, usually from the sun, in order to function. Energy can be passed between organisms, but it cannot be recycled because some of it is lost as heat in each transfer.

Stability and dynamics of ecosystems

Ecosystems are dynamic systems, and a static ecosystem would be a dead ecosystem-just as a static cell would be a dead cell. As we discussed above, energy is constantly flowing through an ecosystem and chemical nutrients are continually being recycled. At higher levels of organization, organisms are dying and being born, populations are fluctuating in their numbers, and climate patterns are varying seasonally and in less predictable ways.

Equilibrium and disturbance

Equilibrium is the steady state of an ecosystem, in which its composition and identity remain generally constant despite fluctuations in physical conditions and the makeup of the biotic community. Ecosystems may be knocked out of equilibrium by disturbances, disruptive events that affect their composition.

Some disturbances are a result of natural processes. For example, fire is a disturbance that can be caused by lightning in a prairie or forest ecosystem. Other disturbances are the result of human activities. Examples include acid rainfall, deforestation, algal blooms, and the introduction of invasive species.

Different ecosystems may respond differently to the same disturbance; one may recover rapidly, and another may recover more slowly-or not at all.

Resistance and resilience

Ecologists sometimes use two parameters to describe how an ecosystem responds to disturbance. These parameters are resistance and resilience. The ability of an ecosystem to remain at equilibrium in spite of disturbances is called resistance. How readily an ecosystem returns to equilibrium after being disturbed is called resilience. Some ecologists consider resistance to be an element of resilience-one that acts on a short timescale.

Many ecologists think that the biodiversity of an ecosystem plays a key role in stability. For example, if there were just one plant species with a particular role in an ecosystem, a disturbance that harms that one species-say, a drought for a drought-sensitive species-might have a severe impact on the ecosystem as a whole. In contrast, if there were several plant species with similar functional roles, there would be a better chance of one of them being drought-tolerant and helping the ecosystem as a whole survive the drought period.

Ecosystem resistance and resilience are important when we consider the effects of disturbances caused by human activity. If a disturbance is severe enough, it may change an ecosystem beyond the point of recovery-push the ecosystem into a zone where it is no longer resilient. A disturbance of this sort could lead to permanent alteration or loss of the ecosystem.

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What is an ecosystem? (article) | Ecology | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Students can use this website to research a current event about the environment and certain ecosystems. They will write their own journal about their findings and how they relate to the course content.

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Cutting edge scientific research accessible to kids. A free STEM teaching resource.

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This Quizizz can serve as homework, review, or a quiz for the students. For this assignment, I can use it as a whole group instructional tool and for the unit quiz. This will allow students to receive the information in similar ways.

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Ecosystems quiz for 5th grade students. Find other quizzes for and more on Quizizz for free!

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This comic on StoryboardThat shows how ecological succession works after a natural disaster. The students can view this comic and then create their own comic on ecological succession or any other concept associated with ecosystems.

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Storyboard Text

﻿﻿﻿﻿Ecological Succession 7.10C by Linda Do

﻿﻿This is a climax community that we are living in. There is lots of sustainability due to a lot of organisms.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿Oh no! A forest wildfire! Get away quickly everyone!

﻿Now we have to wait for pioneer species, like lichen to break us down to form soil.

﻿We are abiotic factors, so we make food from inorganic matters.

﻿﻿﻿﻿Look! Over time, grasses, bushes, and small trees﻿ are beginning to grow and the animals start to come back!

Yay! The tall trees have grown so much, our ecosystem is coming back to life.﻿

﻿Yeah, I think so too. These are such good news.

﻿﻿I can't believe that it took over hundreds over years to recover.

﻿The climax community of a balanced ecosystem is now back!

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ecological succession comic strip 7.10c by linda do

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Ecological Succession Comic Strip 7.10C by Linda Do

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Storyboard Text ﻿﻿﻿﻿Ecological Succession 7.10C by Linda Do ﻿﻿This is a climax community that we are living in. There is lots of sustainability due to a lot of organisms. ﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿Oh no! A forest wildfire! Get away quickly everyone! ﻿Now we have to wait for pioneer species, like lichen to break us down to form soil.

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This assignment will take students through the vocabulary involved with energy flow, show how the energy is transferred, and types of consumers in ecosystems. Throughout the video, it will pause and ask the students questions from the video. This can be used for a single grade or can be left open for multiple attempts.

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Food Chains, Trophic Levels and Energy Flow in an Ecosystem - Video & Lesson Transcript - Study.com.mp4

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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This game will give the students a chance to practice with food chains and how to create them. The game starts with simple food chains, and will work its way to more complex food chains as the students complete each level.

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Food Chain Game - Science - Sheppard Software Educational Games for kids

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Food Chain Game - Food chains come to life: when a chain is correctly put together, it turns into an animated working chain!

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This can serve as practice for students for trophic levels. This website will breakdown each trophic level and the vocabulary associated with each level. This can be used for individual practice or whole group review.

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Describes how to identify trophic levels in a food chain or food web.

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Students can read the NatGeo article on symbiotic relationships and then choose a relationship to discuss further in the form of a research paper or constructive response. This content also has a section for strictly vocabulary for the student to study more.

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Planet Earth is inhabited by millions of species-at least! Because different species often inhabit the same spaces and share-or compete for-the same resources, they interact in a variety of ways, known collectively as . There are four main symbiotic relationships: mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, and competition.

To explore these relationships, let's consider a natural ecosystem such as the ocean. Oceanic environments are known for their species diversity. Imagine you are on a diving expedition to explore the worlds beneath the waves. If we were in the warm waters of the Pacific or Indian Oceans, we'd likely spot an excellent example of mutualism: the relationship between clownfish and sea anemones. In a mutualistic relationship, both species benefit. Sea anemones live attached to the surface of coral reefs. They trap their prey with stinging cells called nematocysts, which are located on their tentacles. Nematocysts release toxins when a small animal contacts an anemone's tentacle. This paralyzes the stung animal, allowing the anemone to easily bring the animal into its mouth for ingestion.

While other fish succumb to these toxic stings, clownfish secrete a substance in the mucus covering their bodies that suppresses the firing of nematocysts. This allows the clownfish to swim comfortably between the tentacles of anemones, creating a protected environment in which potential predators are killed off by anemone stings. This clearly benefits the clownfish, but how about the sea anemones? The brightly colored clownfish attract other fish looking for a meal. These unsuspecting would-be predators are then caught and eaten by the anemones.

As we continue in our imaginary deep-sea voyage, we may observe the commensalistic relationship that exists between barnacles and humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae). Commensalism happens when one species lives with, on, or in another species, known as the host. The host species neither benefits nor is harmed from the relationship. In our imagined example, various species of barnacles attach themselves to the skin of whales. Scientists have not discovered the exact mechanism by which barnacles are able to do this, but it does not appear to bother the whales. How do the barnacles benefit from this unlikely relationship? The huge whales transport the tiny barnacles to plankton-rich waters, where both species feast upon the abundant microorganisms that live there.

Of course, some symbiotic relationships do cause harm. In parasitism, one species (the parasite) lives with, on, or in a host species, at the expense of the host species. Unlike in predation, the host is not immediately killed by the parasite, though it may sicken and die over time. Examples of common parasites found in the ocean include nematodes, leeches, and barnacles. That's right-though barnacles exist commensally with whales, they are parasites for swimming crabs. A barnacle may root itself within a crab's reproductive system. While the crab does not die from this interaction, its reproductive capabilities are greatly diminished.

The last example of symbiosis we will explore on our imaginary dive is competition-the struggle among organisms for the same limited resources in an ecosystem. Competition can happen between members of the same species (intraspecific competition) and between different species (interspecific competition). An example of interspecific competition in the ocean is the relationship between corals and sponges. Sponges are very abundant in coral reefs. If they become too successful, however, they take needed food and other resources from the corals that make up the reef. Sponges may outcompete corals for resources in the short term, but if too many corals die, the reef itself becomes damaged. This is bad for the sponges, which may themselves begin to die off until the reef is balanced again.

Symbiotic relationships can be useful measures of an ecosystem's health. For example, large tracts of coral reefs are severely damaged or dead because of recent increases in ocean temperature due to climate change. The temperature increase induces coral to expel the algae that live mutualistically within them. Without their algae, the coral turn white and die. This loss of symbiosis is an early sign of declining coral health and speaks to the importance not only of studying symbiosis within marine environments, but also of examining the negative impacts that humans can have on these interactions. In the words of National Geographic Explorer Sylvia Earle: "We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depend on it. Because they do."

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Symbiosis is a term describing any relationship or interaction between two dissimilar organisms. The specific kind of symbiosis depends on whether either or both organisms benefit from the relationship.

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This can be used for review for unit exams or throughout the unit. It will allow students to play a game while answering questions, or simply practice the vocabulary.

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Gimkit is a game show for the classroom that requires knowledge, collaboration, and strategy to win. Get started for free!