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Introduction to Ecology
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good afternoon students today we shall be looking at the subject biology and the topic before us is ecology before we continue this subject let us look at some of the objectives in this topic the first one says at the end of this class everyone should be able to define what ecology is number two everyone should be able to explain the types or the branches of ecology with examples number three everyone should be able to enumerate or
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mention the type of e ecological concepts four name the ecological factors common to living and non-living and the last one everyone should be able to explain some of the common ecological measuring instrument so get your writing material sit [Music] back so welcome back to class ecology is a study of relationship between living organism and their environment it forms the basis of understanding agriculture
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forestry and fishery that is the study of living organism plant and animal in relationship with the environment how they interact with the environment in short ecology is a branch of biology that deal with how organism interact with each other and with their environment you can say plants animal there's a relationship between plant and animal for instance green plant produces food for animals to eat the same animal produces carbon dioxide as s as waste product for
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plant to manufacture their food you can see this inter relationship between them and then they all depend on water they all depend on environment environmental factors such as temperature water humidity for them to live so all these factors interacting with each other is what we mean by ecology all right let's move on we have branches of ecology there are basically two branches of ecology the first one is called ecology autocology is the study of a single organism or species and
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its environment when you are trying to study a particular organism take for instance you are studying a particular bird on a particular tree or you are trying to look at a lizard just an organ a lizard in a particular environment that is calledology the study of a single organism or spec sheep and its environment example is a rat in its habitat tilapia in a stream or a student in a school setting if you are studying the activities of a particular student in a given
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environment or you are looking at a rat how is this rat interacting with his environment that is where does this fat get his food from where does he relate with his food how does it relate with the environment in terms of feeding in terms of ex I mean waste product this is just a particular individual organism in the environment so it is called ecology but syncology syncology is the study of interaction among different species it involve two or more species this time around
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you're talking about the rats at the same time you're talking about the lizard you're talking about the plant you're talking about the soil so interacting with another they involve two or more organism living together in a specific environment example is a river ecosystem with fish we have a river which is the environment which consists the fish seaweed and crab you can see three organism are here in a particular environ which is the river so when you study the
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inter relationship between the fish how did they depend on the seaweed and the crab the situation or the condition or this branch of ecology is what we mean by sology senology all right now ecological concept when we say ecological concept we mean what are the terms or what are the words common in ecology you hear environment you hear the word like environment what is environment this include all the factors both external and internal living or non-living that affect
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an organism or group of organism the environment constitute the living and non-living for instance The soil the rock the water the temperature all these things makes up the environment which affects the living organism it consists of the habitat habitat is a place where organism live with pecul such as light food water air the animal preying on other animals or diseases affecting this organism so diseases in that environment predators water air soil rock plants they all
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interact they all work together in an environment depending on the particular organism present there number two we call it biosphere or ecosphere bio bio from the word biolive that is those environment where living organism can only survive this is a zone of the earth occupied by living organism only living organism are found here in the biosphere is a narrow zone where complex biological and chemical activities occur it can be found on the land water and air bofare areas or
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section of the earth where only light tribe and it can be in the on the land we have some animals on the land we have some animals on the on the soil it could be animal it could be plants then we have some that lives on water plant lives on water they lives on land even on air so all these constitute what you mean by the biosphere biosphere provide habitat for organism like animal plants and
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microorganism this the ecosphere consists of three major part ecosphere can be divided into three major parts because this part we can find both plants and animal even dead even microorganism living together all right the second concept here is biosphere otherwise known as ecosphere it is a an area on the earth where living things occur where living thing thrive is occupy this is a zone of the earth occupied by living organism is a narrow zone where complex biological and chemical
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activities occur it can be found on land water and air like we said biosphere are area where only living organism are found when we say living organism it can be microorganism it can be plants it can be animal they are found they can be found on land we have plants on land we have all living organism on land microorganism on land then we have animals on land on water and even on air in air sorry okay the second concept here is called biosphere bio means life meaning only
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life occur in this area is an area where we find living organism and when we say living organism we mean plants animal and microorganism they occur in this area of the earth so this organism can be found on land they can be found on the soil in water even in the air it provide a habitat for organism like animals plants and microorganism the ecosphere consists of three major part yes
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ecosphere can be divided into three major parts we have lithosphere litosphere hydrosphere and then atmosphere so the environment where life can be found can be either lithosphere letosphere is a solid part that is an area that made up of solid it can be soil it can be rock it can be mountain the solid portion of the earth made up of rock and mineral which form 30% of the earth crust the only dry
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area on the surface of the earth where living organism can be found is called lithosphere and it's just about 30% so meaning the remaining 70% is made up of water which is called hydrosphere hydrosphere we of course we've been told that the earth is made up of the earth cross is made up of 70% water water and 30% land you can imagine so it tells you that the hydrosphere is the liquid path
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of the of the biosphere meaning where we have the water body it can be ocean it can be river it can be lake that constitute the hydrosphere then the last one is called the atmosphere atmosphere is an area of the earth where the we have gases they are made up of gases gases they are gous part of the air composed mainly of nitrogen the constituent of the air is nitrogen which is 78% because nitrogen
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makes the largest part of the of the atmosphere 78% followed by oxygen which is 21% and then carbon dioxide which is 0.3% then followed by noble gases noble gas all these constitute what we mean by the atmosphere so basically the the biosphere is made up is can be classified into three lithosphere hydrosphere and atmosphere the following concept is habitat habitat habitat is a place where living organism live is a home where living organism live is an environment in which
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organism live naturally we have different types of habitat we have aquatic habitat meaning organism that are found in water organism that live in water environment like ocean river lake and so on and so forth so any organism that is found in water are called aquatic organism then we have terrestrial habitat terrestrial habitats are organism that lives on land they are environment where land harbors this living organism then we have the third one called abore habitat aborore
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are organism that lives on trees trees they make their environ their home is on the street such as monkeys and birds they are arboral community or bio community biotic community when we say community is the population of all living organism that exist together in a habitat and interact with one another all living organism all living organ be plants be animal be it micro interacting with one another living together for for interaction and benefit is called community community we
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call it community of organism community of plants community of an animal then the next one is biome biome is the largest community of organism in a geographical area when we have the largest community of organism we call a bio and we can have example as rainforest guinea guinea savana micro micro swam sah savana and so on and so forth so these are basically the joke geographical area where living organism share in the community so then the next one is called
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ecological niche ecological niche is a portion of an area where an organ is found is confined in it says it defined as the specific portion of a habitat that is occupied by a particular specy or organism including his role in the ecosystem when a particular organism occupies a particular area for instance you see bees they occupied a certain area on the flower of a plant they don't exceed that area that area becomes the ecological niche that particular area becomes
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the ecological niche you can find some birds on a tree monkeys on a tree that particular area so we can have it's possible we have two organism living together in different part of a particular uh habitat for instance we can have uh bees on the flower pollinating the flower then we can have monkeys on the branches of a particular tree so this all these organism have their different niche or their different portion where they where they occupy as their as their ecological niche
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the next one is population when we say population population is a time in ecosystem too that has to do with the total number of organism a specific organism living in a particular area the total number of organism of the same specy mind you the word specy the organism has to be of the same species for instance you can take a population of human being in a particular community you can take a population of bus in a particular land you can take a population of lizard in a particular
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farmland so that is the population the total number of organism living in a particular area at a specific time the next one is ecological system or ecosystem ecosystem is defined as the community of plant and animal functioning together with their non-living environment ecosystem simply means the interaction between plants and animal in relationship with their non-living environment so echo system can be divided into two basic sections or parts we have one biotic and
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abiotic biotic simply means life biotic uh ecosystem are plants and animals are made up of living organism which consume plants and animal in their environment while abiotic is simply non-living thing non-living which consume the non-living things so examples of biotic uh ecosystem is the producer the producers are the green plant meaning they produce the green plant manufactured food through photosetences so they otherwise known as autorops so they are made up of
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green plant because they are plants automatically they are living things so they consume what called the biotic then we have another section of the biotic which is the consumer the consumer are those animal they are animal which feed directly on the green plant so meaning animal don't produce their food but they depend on what the plant they depend on autorop in the process otherwise known as hetrop or hetroism so these animals are called consumer because they consume what the
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producer produce then we have the last one called decomposer they are also living organism because they are made up of microorganism that are ready to degrade or to cause the breaking down or decay of this living organism they are microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi that are responsible for decay or decomposition of this organism they are otherwise known as saproyes sacrified then the non-living organism are called examples of non-living environment is soil of course soil
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is not living water temperature humidity and so on and so forth then the next uh concept we shall be talking about is seasonal migration migration means movement of organism from place to place movement of animals for breeding feeding or avoiding harsh condition there are conditions that are too uh harsh for organism in a particular area they tend to move to other location for instance let's look at cattle igret for instance these uh birds have coming all the way from the
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north probably because of the dry harsh condition they are now moving down to the south where they can get some food and water for them to survive so this movement from place to place is what we call seasonal migration because they do that in season so for instance we see fish can migrate in such a way that muddy fish move between deep and shallow water for instance if fish want to lay their egg they move from what deep to shallow water even in bells such as cattle
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igra like we said they migrate seasonally in Nigeria they move all the way from the north down to the south in search of food and safety yes next let's look at some ecological factors common to all habitat we say habitat is a place where living organism find as a whole so what are the factor that depends or that determines the existence or the flow of this organism in a particular area
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number one temperature has an impact or effect on the plant even on the animal living a particular environment when the temperature becomes too harsh living organism will be affected when the rainfall another one is rainfall when the rainfall is cast it will affect the activities of plant and animal in a particular habitat then we have light of course light has to do with sunlight meaning if the sunlight is poor this is going to affect the photosetes of plants occurring in
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particular area which is automatically going to affect have a ripple effect on the animal because when this photoset is poor plants cannot produces it food and animal will go on starvation there will be no food for the animal then we have wind of course we know the the importance of wind wind can cause pollination wind can cause erosion wind can even cause rainfall so the effect of this factor determines the existing or the interaction of both plant and animal in a particular
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environment then we have pressure pressure of course means the force in the air then we have temperature sorry
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so the next one is ecological factors common to all habitat meaning there are some factor that determine the relationship or the interaction of this organism in a particular environment the first one is temperature temperature has an effect on the existence of living organism for instance if the temperature is too high it has a ripple effect on animals because they are not going to be they won't be able to function well because the temperature
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have been increased and if the temperature is be too low is also have an effect there's an a particular optimum temperature where a living organism can try another one is rainfall rainfall is also a factor when the weather becomes when the rainfall becomes too much is going to affect plants and animal plants may not be able to survive well and the ripple effect is going to be on the animal because if the plant is not producing it intended food is going to affect the
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animal it's going to cause starvation and at the same time too much rainfall can cause what we call erosion which is going to affect agricultural activities or the existence of some animal in that environment then light light of course is coming from sunlight sunlight is responsible for photosy and photoy producing food for animals so when the light is poor photosensis will be poor it's going to have an effect on the animal then wind wind is another factor wind causes
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erosion wind causes rainfall in fact rain causes pollination so when rain or the wind is hindered or affected is going to have a ripple effect on both plant and animal then of course the last one being pressure pressure is the force in air the amount of atmospheric pressure in a particular environment affected both plant and animal then the next one is of ecological factor we said above that there are some factor that determine the ecology of a the ecology of an environment so how
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do we measure these factors what are the parameter put in place to measure these factor the first one is ultimeter ultimeter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of a particular environment or ecology alt meter will measure the elevation or the altitude of a particular environment number two is phototometer otherwise known as light meter this measure how bright the intensity of light in
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a particular environment we can have on a normal day the the the sunlight can be bright but on a rainy day or on a cloudy day the sunlight will be poor so the amount or the intensity of light can be measured through an instrument called photometer the next one is hydrophotometer hydrophotometer simply means the amount of water content in air can be measured by what is called hydrophotometer the amount of water content on air can be measured the intensity of water can
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be measured by what we call hydrophotometer then we have handheld sonar handheld sonar is used to measure the amount of water depth the depth of water in the soil then we have calorieter calorie or pH meter will measure the level of acidity of the soil the level of acidity or alkalinity of the soil we use pH meter or calimeter to determine that then we have the next one is hydromemeter hyrometer i grow meter measure the amount of humidity
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humidity simply means the amount of water in air the amount of water suspended in air is called humidity so it can be measured by an instrument called hydrometer or cyro hyrometer or cyrometer cyrometer cychrometer or hydrometer then the next one is thermometer of course thermometer will measure the amount of temperature that is the rise and fall of temperature in an environment is measured by what we call thermometer then the last the next one is animometer animer is
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an echological instrument used to measure the wind speed that is the wind current how the wind is able to this the the speed of wind in environment will be measured by what we call animometer animator of course the next one is the wind vein wind vein is different from animometer because wind vein will measure the direction of wind if the wind is moving toward the south or is moving toward the south or towards the north will be determined by what we call the
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wind vein is to show a direction with a compass tilting towards the direction where the wind is blowing the next one is rain gauge rain gauge will measure the amount of rainfall in a particular place then the last one is barometer barometer is a measuring instrument ecological instrument to measure the atmospheric pressure of a place it determine the atmospheric pressure of a place next is responses to abiotic factor that is how does living organism react or respond
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to non-living factors when we say non-living t we measure above rainfall temperature humidity pressure and so on number one they migrate living things migrate they move about from one place to the other some organizing temporarily move to area with more favorable environmental condition like we said cattle igree move all the way from the north down south because the environment there is too hot for them it's too harsh for them so they have to move down to a particular environment
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where they are safe and they are secure for example birds migrate to a warmer region during winter and return when the condition improves number two how does living organism conform to the environment certain organism cannot regulate their internal temperature or osmotic balance instead their body condition change with the external environment these organism are known as poamic or ectoine there are some organism that cannot react they cannot relate with the environment
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for instance you have a fish that is accustomed to the water bodies in a cool environment if you bring it outside you find it difficult to relate they cannot they can they can they cannot conform to that environment they rather die but you cannot compare that with human being which they can easily adapt or conform to the environment by some internal changes in their system you know they are thereby creating an environment that makes their system to fit in to the new
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environment living organisms can suspend how do you mean by sustain some organisms survive extreme condition by entering a doant state they become passive they become they become lifeless so to speak for instance we talk about some organisms that are able to do this we call them ensistment we call this process ensistment meaning they become passive all through the harsh condition for instance if you look at this giant snail they form what you call they have a sealant on their body
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surface during harsh condition you understand so thereby preventing evaporation because the entire environment is hot and there's no amount of water so as to prevent water loss in their body they form what you call a cyst on their surface during that hard I mean harsh condition and they are able to break up this seal when the environment is favored during the rainy season so some organis survive extreme condition by entering a doant state cold bloodooded animal may enter into
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hibernation during the cold period we have seen that in lizard lizard snakes they are cold bolded animal on a cold day they try to hibernate they hide to hide themselves they try to go to a place that is warm for them they hide themselves they hibernate they they hide themselves because they are cold blooded animals they cannot be able to conform to the environment which is harsh for them
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during cold period or estivation during hot and dry period some bacteria form spore to withstand harsh environment the last one is regulate living organism are able to regulate their body other organism maintain a stable internal environment despite external changes this regulator include mammas you know uh mammals are built in such a way that they can control their internal environment you know bells can can do that as well because mammals are covered with skin they have
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hair in their body so also the bells they have feathers they can regulate the amount of heat flow exchange in their body and the environment some invertebrate and lower vertebrae can also do this they use what's called therma regulation and osmo regulation to preserve constant internal temperature and osmotic pressure they also called homo homes or endotams or we call them homotamic because they have constant body temperature they regulate this
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temperature based on the environment they find themselves the next one is next slide so how does a particular organism interact with the environment if we say interaction among components of the of the ecosystem how do plant and animal interact or how do plants and and an and a fellow plant interact with one of or how do plants interact with non-living environment plants that is the producer use carbon dioxide water and sunlight you can see plant is a living organism
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and they use the non-living things such as carbon dioxide water and sunlight to capture what we call chlorophyll in the process called photosynthesis you can see the relationship between living thing which is plant and the environment which consume the carbon dioxide water and so on to produce or to manufacture starch to perform photosy producing carbohydrate like starch for animals to feed upon
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can you see that interaction animal also which is consumer feed on this plant and use the carbon hydrate for energy thereby releasing carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere for the plant you can see the the interaction while animal is feeding on this plant they consume this uh carbohydrate they ended up producing energy and this energy releases carbon dioxide back into the environment and when it gets to the environment the plant capture them for
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photosy to manufacture their food the next one is decomposers or we call them s profile deco composer like microen break down dead plant and animal releasing nutrient into the soil which are then absorbed by plant to sustain their growth can you see this plant and animal interact with the non-living environment to balance up the ecosystem so decomposition is simply the breaking down of both plant and animal they break them into simple nutrient that is good for the plant
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growth you know thereby continuing the circle thereby continue the interaction between the plant animal and the what the composers components in the ecosystem that causes interaction between plant and animal is oxygen oxygen is produced during respiration of plants and this oxygen is like a waste product a byproduct and as is being released into the environment the animal take it in you know animal take in oxygen to break down carbon dioxide thereby releasing
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energy for the animal use so come to the end of the class but please like subscribe and drop your comment at the comment section below thank you hi if you have not subscribed to this channel you can do so in 5 seconds 5 4 3 2 1 And don't forget to hit the notification button
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