Unit 6: Ecology 2017-2018

Central Concept: Ecology is the interaction among organisms and between organisms and their environment.

6.1 Explain how birth, death, immigration, and emigration influence population size.

6.2 Analyze changes in population size and biodiversity (speciation and extinction) that result from the following: natural causes, changes in climate, human activity, and the introduction of invasive, non-native species.

6.3 Use a food web to identify and distinguish producers, consumers, and decomposers, and explain the transfer of energy through trophic levels. Describe how relationships among organisms (predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, mutualism) add to the complexity of biological communities.

6.4 Explain how water, carbon, and nitrogen cycle between abiotic resources and organic matter in an ecosystem, and how oxygen cycles through photosynthesis and respiration.

LS2-1 Analyze data sets to support explanations that biotic and abiotic factors affect ecosystem carrying capacity.

LS2-2 Use mathematical representations to support explanations that biotic and abiotic factors affect biodiversity, including genetic diversity within a population and species diversity within an ecosystem.

LS2-4 Use a mathematical model to describe the transfer of energy from one trophic level to another. Explain how the inefficiency of energy transfer between trophic levels affects the relative number of organisms that can be supported at each trophic level and necessitates a constant input of energy from sunlight or inorganic compounds from the environment.

LS2-5 Use a model that illustrates the roles of photosynthesis, cellular respiration, decomposition, and combustion to explain the cycling of carbon in its various forms among the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere.

LS2-6 Analyze data to show ecosystems tend to maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms even when small changes in conditions occur but that extreme fluctuations in conditions may result in a new ecosystem. Construct an argument supported by evidence that ecosystems with greater biodiversity tend to have greater resistance to change and resilience.

LS2-7 Analyze direct and indirect effects of human activities on biodiversity and ecosystem health, specifically habitat fragmentation, introduction of non-native or invasive species, overharvesting, pollution, and climate change. Evaluate and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on biodiversity and ecosystem health.