SUMMARY # 3 (Food Chain and Food Web)

In this summary we will how do living things depend on each other for energy.

How Do Populations Interact?
Changes in one population can affect several other populations in the same ecosystem. Every population needs energy in order to survive. The energy in an ecosystem comes from the Sun. You can feel the Sun´s energy as it warms your skin. The energy of the Sun is stored in food. The energy in  the food is passed from one organism to another in a food chain. A food chain is the path energy takes from producers to consumers to decomposers. The first organism in a food chain are plants, because they capture the Sun´s energy during photosynthesis. This energy is stored in the foods the plant makes for itself.

How Do Food Chains Become Food Webs?
Plants compete for sunlight, water, and minerals. Animals compete for the plants and animals they eat. This competition means that, in an ecosystem, many small food chains may overlap each other. A food web is the overlapping foodchains. A food chain shows one population that eats or is eaten by another population. A food web shows how one populationa can be part of more than one food chain. It shows how each population in a community relates to all the other populations.

• Producers: Food chains and food webs exist in all ecosystem, They all have producers. The producers include grasses, trees, and all other organisms that use the Sun's energy to make their own food.
• Eating Producers or Consumers: Organisms that cannot make their own food are consumers. Consumers get energy fron the food made by other organisms. Consumers can be grouped according to the type of food they eat. Hervibores eat producers.
• Eating Hervibores: Hervibores are eaten by carnivores animals that eat other animals. All cats, big and small, are carnivores. Dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes and other animasl are carnivores. The most frightening of these is the great white shark.

What is a Predator?
Are living things that hunt other living things for food. The hunted are called prey. The relationships between predators and prey are a key part of both food chains and food webs.
Not all meat eaters are predators. Some animals eat meatbut don´t hunt it. Such meat eaters are called scavengers. The feed on the remains of dead animals.
When an animal eat plant and animals it is an omnivore. We are omnivore. Bears are omnivores too.
Every food chain and food web ends with decomposers such as worms, insects, bacteria and fungi. These organisms break down dead matter into substances that can be used by producers.

What Happens When Niches Overlap?
No two populations can have the same niche. Why is this true? To have the same niche, two populationswould have to eat the same space and reproduce in the same ways. They would have to thrive under the same temoerature, moisture and light conditions. They would have to get the same diseases and look and have exactly alike. That is, they would have to be identical. Yet no two populations are identical. This does not means that similar populations with different niches do not compete. They do. When two species are very similar, teir niches overlap. Sometimes the competition causes a population to change its niche. This is specially true when a very similar population invades the habitat of anither population.

How Did The Anoles Deal With Competition?
At one time green anoles could be spotted all over Florida, perched on the trunks of trees and the branches of bushes. They were adapted to this environment for a number of reasons. Their green color camouflaged them when they were among leaves. Their ability to turn brown did the same when they clung to tree trunks. This made them hard for predators to find.
Then a new and bigger species of anole arrived in Florida fromm the island of Cuba. Soon the smaller green anole seemed to disappear, replaced by the Cuban anole.

How Is Energy Moved In A Community?
Plants capture energy from sunlight.  All organisms need energy to live. Producers get energy from the Sun. Consumers get it from the foods they eat. However, energy is losts as it passes from one organisms to another in a food chain.
An energy pyramid shows a number of things. It shows that there is less food at the top of the pyramid than as itsbase. It also shows that there are fewer organisms as you move from bottom to top.
Consumers get their energy from food. The less food ther is, the less energy is available. Energy decreases from the base to the top of the pyramid. 

What Happens When There Is A Red Tide?
Ocean Blooms on the increase off Texas Coast might not seem like a frightening headline, it means a trouble.
The blooms refer to a sudden rapid increase in the population of microscopic sea organisms called dinoflagellates. These tiny algae are producers atthe bottom of the ocean food chain. They are a part of every ocean food web. 
They are also at the base of the ocean energy pyramid. They store the Sun´s energy, whuch is passed up the pyramid. ne dinoflagellate that does this belongs to a group of algae called fire algae. They get their name mainly because of their red color. When they bloom they can turn hundreds of square miles of ocean red. That´s why a bloom of these organisms is called red tide.
People are also affectedby red tides. A person who eats poisoned shellfish can become very sick. The poisons produced by fire algae seem to only affect the nervous system of complex animals like fish, mammals, and birds.

                                                                            Food Web

SUMMARY # 2 (Living Things And Their Environment).

All living things need food, water, the right temperature and a place to live. The following summary will explain all about the living things and their environment.

What Do Living Things Need To Survive?
Living things and Nonliving things interact in an ecosystem. An ecosystem is all living things en an area interacting with each other. Over the world there are many diferent ecosystem, but they have the same parts or thesame characteristics. All living things need certain nonliving things in order to survive.
Living things need minerals, such as calcium, iron, phosphorus, and nitrogen. Some living things, like plants and algae, need sunlight to make food.

What Do Living Things Contribute?
The right abiotic factors help make it possible for the organisms, or living things, in an ecosystem to survive. The abiotic factors include water, minerals, sunlight, air, climate, and soil. The living parts are animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria. Mushrooms and molds are fungi. Protists include one celled organisms. Microscopic bacteria live everywhere. These organisms make up the biotic factors or living things of an ecosystem. Biotic factors include plants, animals, fungi, protists and bacteria.
Plants and algae produce oxygen and food that animals need, so they are called "producers".
Animals consume, or eat, plants or animals that eat plants. Animals also give off carbon dioxide that olants need to make food, so the animals are called "consumers".
Fungi and bacteria are decomposers. They decompose, or break down, dead plants and animals into useful things like  minerals that enrich soil.

What Were The Prairies Like?
A prairie is a region of tall grasses. It may be flat or hilly grassland. Many kinds of animals and plants live in a prairie. Native Americans once hunted buffalo on prairie lands. Later, ranchers and farmers grazed cattle and planted crops such as corn and wheat. At least 50 different kinds of tall and short grasses provided food for plant-eating animals. Many kinds of wildflowers painted the landscape with beautiful colors. The purple cone-flowers, yellow sunflowers, golden daleas and bluebells are some of this wildflowers. Before the land became farms and ranches, huge herds of buffalo grazed on the prairie grasses.

What Animals Live In The Blacklands?
About 500 species, or different kinds, of animals still live on this prairie. Rattle-snakes, lizards, racoons, coyotes, cottontails, red bats, bobcats, gray wolves, black bears, stripped skunks are some of the animals that we can found in this blacklands.

How Are The Living Things Organized?
The Blackland Prairie, like all ecosystems, is home to many different organisms. Each kind of organisms, whether an animal, plant, fungus, protists or bacterium, is a member of a single species. All the organisms of a species living in the same area make up a population. The Blackland Prairie has populations of armadillos and badgers. it has little bluestem grass, Indian grass and elm trees. It also has pond algae, soil, bacteria, and fungi.
Scientists want to know how populations interact, so they investigate the activities of animals, plants, fungi, protists, and bacteria in the ecosystem.
They are interested to know which animals prey on others, which animals eat plants, which insects eat crops, and how bacteria and fungi make the soil fertile. Scientists have to study  the interactions of all the popupaltions in an area. All the populations living in an area make up a community.

Where Do They Live? What Do They Do?
The place where an organism lives is called its habitat. The chorus frog´s habitat is in the scattered ponds of the Blacklands. Each species in an ecosystem also has a role or place in the activities of its community. The role of an organism in the community is its niche. A species niche includes many factros. It includes what a species eats and what eats that species. It includes the kind of environment the species needs to live in. Scientists study the habitats and niches of organisms in a community. They do this to see if the community is healthy or in trouble.
Ants live in the same habitat as Texas horned lizards. Since the lizards eat ants, what happens to the ants may tell a lot about the future of te lizards. The relationship doesn´t stop there. What happens to the ants will also affect the lives of these birds. Nonliving factors also affect organisms lives. If conditions of an organisms niche change, it may have trouble surviving.

How Do Organisms Survive Changes?
The world is a place of changes. One day the weather may be dry and cold. The next day it may be wet and warm. Heavy rains may drench the land one spring and summer. The next year´s spring and summer may have cloudless skies day after day. This makes habitats change. A good habitat for a certain organism at one at another time. Some animals may be adapted to changes in their habitats in different ways. A varied diet can be useful. For example: Texas horned lizards eat mainly ants. They also eat another insects. If the ant population decreases, at least some lizards will survive. If the ant population increases, the lizards will have more food, and their population will increase.

What Is The Treasure of the Blackland Prairie?
The treasure of the Blackland Prairie is the ground. Prairie soils can often be identified by their dark brown to black topsoil. Topsoil is the top layer of soil The dark color shows the presence of humus. Humus is partly decayed plant matter. The decay is produced by the Blackland's tiniest organisms, bacteria and fungi. The rich topsoil is full of minerals that prairie grasses and crops need. Two of the most important minerals are magnesium and calcium. Plant need magnesium in order to make chlorophyll molecules. Calcium is an important element of cell walls in plants. The nutrients in certain prairie soils tend to stay near the surface. Farmers take advantage of this by growing crops that have shallow roots, such as corn, wheat, cotton and sorghum.

What Grasses Grow On The Prairie Today?
Corn, wheat and sorghum have something in common with plants that grow naturallyon the prairie. They are all classified as grasses. Today most of the natural grasses that used to sway in the wind like ocean waves are gone from the Blackland Prairie.

 

summary #1 Energy Resources

How Do People Use Energy?

In many homes, school and buildings people get energy from natural gas, burning oil and electricity that runs to many common devices such as computers, lights, radios and TV's. Power plants makes electricity. Private and public transportation takes energy from burning fuels.

How Are Fossils Fuels Turned into Energy?

Heat from burning fossils fuels can be used directly to heat homes, schools, businesses and factories. All fuels have advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of using fossil fuels is that they contains a lot of energy. But fossil fuels cannot be replaced fast, because take millions of years to form. So is nonrenewable.
The heat is ised to generate electricity. Can also be used to boil water and turn it into steam. The steam is trapped and pressure builds up. The steam is released and directed to a pinwheel-like turbine. When the steam hits the turbine, it causes it to spin. The spinning turbine turns a generator to make electricity.

Where Do Fossil Fuels Come From? 

Coal is formed from the remains of dead plants buried in ancient swamps and forests. Natural Gas and Oil is formed from the remains of tiny ocenas plants and animals. Over millions of years, the plant and animal remains changed into oil and natural gas.

What Other Sources Of Energy Are There?

Other sources of energy are called alternative energy sources. Here are some alternatives energy sources:

• Geothermal Energy: Earth's internal heat. The water is heated below the surface in places where magma collects. Geothermal Energy can be used to heat homes and produce electricity. For example: At The Geyser in California, steam drives turbines that generate electricity.

• Solar Energy: Today people are using new ways to harness the power of sunligth. One way is to trap or concetrate sunligth with the use of solar panels or collectors. The trapped sunlight is used to heat water or entire homes. Another way to use it is with solar cells. Solar Cells are devices that convert sunligth into electric energy.

How Can We Conserve Energy?

We have learned that fossil fuels are the stored energy that came from once living things and are nonrenewable energy.
However, plant matter and animal wastes or other remains called Biomass, can be used as a renewable energy source. Plant material and animal  wastes that might wind up as garbage can be processed to form fuel. Bacteria, Corn and other grains also can be turned into fuel.