The Sun is a source of energy that passes through ecosystems. Materials including carbon and water are continually recycled by the living world, being released through respiration of animals, plants and decomposing microorganisms and taken up by plants in photosynthesis. All species live in ecosystems composed of complex communities of animals and plants dependent on each other and that are adapted to particular conditions, both abiotic and biotic. These ecosystems provide essential services that support human life and continued development. In order to continue to benefit from these services humans need to engage with the environment in a sustainable way. In this section we will explore how humans are threatening biodiversity as well as the natural systems that support it. We will also consider some actions we need to take to ensure our future health, prosperity and well-being.
Objectives - After this topic you should know:
What is meant by a stable community.
How organisms are adapted to the conditions in which they live.
The relationship between communities and ecosystems.
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Some of the factors that affect communities.
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How to measure the distribution of living things in their natural environment.
How finding the mean, median and mode can help you understand your data.
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Why animals compete.
The factors that organisms are competing for in a habitat.
How organisms are adapted to the environment they live in.
What makes an animal a successful competitior.
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What plants compete for.
How plants compete.
Adaptations that plants have to make them successful competitors.
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What organisms need in order to survive.
How organisms are adapted to survive in many different conditions.
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Some of the ways in which animals are adapted in order to survive.
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Some of the ways in which plants are adapted to survive.
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Identify producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, predators and prey in a food web.
Describe what happens to a population in a food web when another changes.
Plot data as a line graph and explain the pattern of predator and prey populations.
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Explain why decomposers are important to a stable ecosystem.
Describe the events in the decay and water cycles.
Explain the importance of recycling substances.
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Describe the events in the carbon cycle.
Explain why the carbon cycle is vital to life on Earth.
Write word equations for photosynthesis, respiration, and combustion.
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Identify factors that speed up or slow down decay.
Choose a suitable dependent variable and plan a way to measure it accurately.
Plot a line graph with more than one line plotted on the same axes.
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What biodiversity is and why it is important.
Some of the effects of the growth in human population on the Earth and its resources.
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How human activities pollute the land.
How human activities pollute the water.
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How acid rain is formed.
How acid rain affects living organisms.
How air pollution causes global dimming and smog.
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What is meant by deforestation.
Why loss of biodiversity matters.
The environmental effects of destroying peat bogs.
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What is meant by global warming.
How global warming could affect life on Earth.
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How to evaluate the effect of climate change on the distribution of organisms.
Different types of environmental changes.
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How waste, deforestation and global warming all have an impact on biodiversity.
Some of the ways in which people are trying to reduce the impact of human activities and maintain biodiversity.
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About trophic levels.
How to construct accurate pyramids of biomass from appropriate data.
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How much of the biomass from each trophic level is transferred to the next level.
How biomass is lost by organisms at each stage of a food chain.
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Some of the factors that affect global food security.
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That short food chains make food production more efficient.
How farmers can manage food production to reduce wasted energy and therefore loss of biomass.
How to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of modern farming techniques.
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What is meant by sustainable food production.
How to conserve fish stocks and make fishing for food sustainable again.
How fungi can be used to make a new type of food.
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