海洋生态学Marine Ecology
Chapter 1 Introduction 第一章概论
ECO: In Greek ("oikos"), it means the home, the place where we live.E cology means the science of how all living creatures interact within our home - our environment. "environment" and "ecology" are extended to encompass the inseparable universe. The Earth, and survival of all species, is reliant upon the harmony of its existence among billions of other planets and space objects.
1. Ecology is the study of the interactions between organisms and the living and nonliving components of their environment. It involves collecting information about organisms and their environments, looking for patterns, and seeking to explain these patterns
2. How ecologists learn about how systems work.
(1) Observation (description)
(2) form a hypothesis about the things that are structuring that system.
(3) do experiments
(4) from the experimental results you test the hypothesis
(5) develop models of how the system works
(6) revise your description based on the models
(7) keep going through that cycle
3. Key Theme in Ecology
(1) Interconnectedness: No organism is isolated, all organisms interact with other organisms and with the nonliving portion of their environment – survival depends on it
(2) Consequence: Any disturbance or change in ecosystem can spread through the network of interactions and affect the ecosystem in widespread and unexpected ways
(3) Two ways: The organism environment interaction is two-way
4. Two branches of ecology
Population and community ecology: the study of the processes that regulate the distribution and abundance of organisms.
Biogeochemistry: the study of how organisms mediate the transformation of energy and matter in the biosphere
The structure of the community effects productivity in biogeochemistry. These processes in turn feed back and affect the structure of the community.
5．Levels of Organization
Biosphere－Ecosystem－Community－Population－Organism
It is really difficult to talk about these in a very clean way. You cannot really study an organism all by itself because each organism is in itself an ecosystem or a community. Maybe not an ecosystem but a community of organisms. But this is the way we have come to divide up the living world at different levels of organization.
Biosphere is the thin volume of Earth and its atmosphere. It is the Broadest and most inclusive, from the deepest part of the ocean to about 6 miles above the Earths surface. It includes all organisms, most found within a few meters or the surface of the land or oceans. It consists of ecosystems
