Organisms and their

environment
 Organisms and the environment
• One very important way of studying living things is to study them where they live.
Animals and plants do not live in complete isolation.
• They are affected by their surroundings, or environment
• The environment is also affected by them
• The area where an organism lives is called its habitat. The habitat of a tadpole might
be a pond.
• But tad poles will not be the only organisms living in the pond.
• There will be many other kinds of animals and plants making up the pond community
 Ecosystem
• The living organisms in the pond , the water in it, the stones and the mud
at the bottom make up an ecosystem .
• An ecosystem consists of a community and its environment
• ecosystem as a unit containing all of the organisms and their
environment, interacting together, in a given area, e.g. a lake
 Energy flow
• All living organisms need energy. They get this energy from food by respiration
• All the energy in an ecosystems comes (originates) from the sun
• Some of this energy is taken in by plants to make food such as glucose, fat,
starch and proteins and many organic substances
• When the plant needs energy, it breaks down some of this food by respiration
• Animals get their energy and food from eating plants and animals
• Animals also get their food from plants
 Food chain and food web
• The sequence by which energy, in the form of chemical energy in food,
passes from a plant to an animal and then to other animals is called a food
chain.
• food chain as showing the transfer of energy from one organism to the
next, beginning with a producer
• Animals are consumers. An animal which eats plants is a primary
consumer, because it is the first consumerin a food chain.
 Food chain
• producer as an organism that makes its own organic nutrients, usually
using energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis
• consumer as an organism that gets its energy by feeding on other
organisms
• herbivore as an animal that gets its energy by eating plants
• carnivore as an animal that gets its energy by eating other animals
• decomposer as an organism that gets its energy from dead or waste
organic matter
 Food web
• Many different food chains link to form a food web.
• A food web as a network of interconnected food chains
• Food chains are not really as straightforward as described above, because
most animals eat more than one type of food.
• A fox, for example, does not feed entirely on rabbits but takes beetles, rats
and other insects in its diet.
 Energy losses in a food chain
• As energy is passed along a food chain, some of it is lost to the environment. This
happens in many ways:
1. the energy released from the food is lost as heat energy to the environment.
2. When one organism eats another, it rarely eats absolutely all of it.
3. When an animal eats another organism as food, not all of the food molecules
are digested and absorbed, and the ones that a re not are eventually lost from
the body in the faeces.
• These faeces contain energy that is lost from this food chain.
 Energy losses in a food chain
• This means that, the further you go a long a food chain, the less energy is
available for each successive group of organisms.
• The plants get a lot of energy from the Sun, but only a fraction of this
energy is absorbed by the herbivores and
• only a fraction of that is absorbed by the carnivores
• This explains why predators are usually much rarer than herbivores, and
why there are usually many more plants than animals in an ecosystem
 Trophic levels
• Each stage in a food chain is called a trophic level.
• The position of an organism in a food chain or food web is a trophic level
• This loss of energy limits the length of food chains.
• They rarely have more than five trophic levels, as there is not enough energy left to support
a sixth
• Many organisms feed at more than one trophic level.
• You, for example, are a primary consumer when you eat vegetables, a secondary consumer
when you eat meat a tertiary consumer when you eat a predatory fish such as a salmon
 Trophic levels
• Based upon their position in the trophic level and the kind of organism
they feed on, consumers have been categorized into primary, secondary,
tertiary and quaternary consumers.
• Primary consumers belong to second trophic level and they feed upon
producers. 
• Secondary consumers belong to third trophic level and they feed upon
primary consumers.
 Trophic levels
• Tertiary consumers belong to fourth trophic level and they feed upon
secondary consumers.
• Quaternary consumers belong to the fifth trophic level and they feed
upon tertiary consumers.
• For example: In a food chain ; Grass→ Insects→ Frog→ Snake→
Eagle ; Insects are primary
consumers, Frog is secondary consumer, Snake is a tertiary
consumer and Eagle is a quaternary consumer.
Trophic levels
 Drawing a food chain
1. When constructing a food chain, always start with the name of the
producer, usually a type of plant.
2. here should then be an arrow, pointing right towards a named herbivore
(the animal which eats the plant).
3. This is linked by another arrow to a named carnivore (the animal which
eats the herbivore). There may be higher carnivores involved, also
linked by arrows
homework
Revision practice
questions
1. Draw and label the parts of the human alimentary canal.
2. Name the gland that produces saliva
3. What is an enzyme
4. What enzyme is found in saliva
5. Draw a labelled diagram of the human gas exchange system
6. Compare the differences in the composition of inspired and expired air
Thank you