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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Ecology!

In science, we have been learning all about ECOLOGY lately. While we we're learning this subject our teacher likes to give us some vocabulary to help us remember. Such as the words autotroph and consumer. The only difference between the two is that an autotroph is an organism that makes it's on food and a consumer eats other organisms to get energy. Another important word is niche, this is important because it is the role of an organism in it's society. An example of this would be if you are a sister, brother, student, or any under that catagory. Another one that we spent a lot of time on was symbiosis, this is a relationship between two organisms in which one organism lives near, or inside another and effects the other one by either hurting or helping it. Like when a bird lives on top of a tree, they two living organisms represent a perfect example of symbiosis. Two other words you would need to remember are food chain and food web. A food chain is when food energy is tranferred from on species to another in a representation of series of events. On the other hand a food web is when various food chains over-lap and are represented in a diagram. As I was researching ECOLOGY, I found out that wikipedia words the definition as: "The scientific study of the distribution and abundance of life and the interactions between organisms and their natural environment". It also said that:"Eugenius Warming founded ecology as a scientific discipline. I cant wait to learn more about ecology.





Engenuis Warming



Example of Autotroph









Example of Consumer





Food Web

















Monday, November 17, 2008

Symbiosis

In Science Class, our previous subject was entitled, Symbiosis. This is a relationship about two species that work together. The results of the relationship could end up either hurt one or both, or, benefiting on or both. In Symbiosis, there are three possible categories that they would fall under, Parasitism, Commensalism, or Mutualism. Parasitism is when both of the species in the relationship are harmed. An example would be the Shelf Fungus and the Hickory Tree because they both aren't getting anything out of the realtionship but instead are being harmed. The next one, Commensalism, would be when one of the species is benfited but the other on isn't harmed either. An example would be a bird living on a tree because the bird is getting shelter while the tree isn't getting harmed. type is Mutualism, this is when the two species are both getting benfited. An example would be a bee and a flower because they both are helping each other to get an important element needed in there lives. As I was doing a litter more research on Symbiosis I found out that the word comes from the greek origin, because syn means with and biosis means living. I also learned that Heinrich Anton de Bary, a German mycologist, gave Symbiois the definition of: "the living together of unlike organisms". I cant wait to learn more about this topic!
(*Sources below pictures =])
Bee/Flower
Example of Mutualism