Chapter 4

Ecosystem
4.1 The Sonoran desert
• A desert is no an ideal place for organisms to survive.
• However, some organisms survived in desert through adaptation.
• For example, cactus have a very long root that penetrate deep
underneath the earth crust to look for any possible water source.
• Gila woodpecker will drill a holes in the cacti and build their nest
inside.
• Another bird call the cactus Wren build their nest on a cactus that is
very spiky to protect their offspring from predator.
• Nature
• Where the organisms stays
4.1 The Sonoran desert
• During the hot days, animal will hide under the tree, or burrow
themselves into the soil which is cooler. At night, when the temperature
drops, kangaroo rat comes out to feed, wary of their predator like
rattlesnake and coyotes.
• There will a heavy rain at least once in a year in the Sonoran desert.
When it rains many plants quickly produce flowers.
• The insects feed on pollen and nectar of the flowers helping them to
reproduce by pollinating. Bat will also feed on the nectar of the flowers.
• The seed falls will also be collected by the ants and carried back to their
food storage. The uneaten seeds will germinate and grow into a tree
later
4.1 The Sonoran Desert
• As we read the information we can come to a conclusion that the organisms
interact with each other, and their actions will affect each other in the desert.
• Apart from the living things. The non-living things also affect the organism in the
desert. Such as light, temperature, water, soil and air
• Light allows the plant to carry out photosynthesis.
• Temperature plays an important part in the desert, as the temperature is often
high during the day in the desert. Some animals will rather come out to feed in
the night when it is cooler. They are so called nocturnal.
• Water is the most important thing in the desert, it keeps the organisms alive.
• The soil provide a protection for small organisms also allow the plants to grow.
• The air provides carbon dioxide for plants and oxygen for all organisms.
4.1 The Sonoran desert
• The ecosystem in the desert
• Food web is a rather important part of an ecosystem. However, it is
not the only factor in describing an ecosystem.
• Even though the plants are producers in the desert, it also provide
protection for the insects and also allow the bird to make a nest on
them to prevent them from flushing away when the rain comes.
• The habitat is where the organisms live and reproduce. For example
the habitat for cactus is the open desert.
• The interaction of an ecosystem is very complicated. The specialist
scientist study ecosystem is called ecologist.
4.2 Different ecosystem
• Mangrove Forest
-mangroves are trees that can grow with their roots in sea water. They
form forests along the coasts of many tropical countries
-Young fish live among the mangrove roots, safe from larger fish that
might eat them. Mud skippers climb out onto the mud when the tide is
out, feeding on whatever they can find.
-As the mangrove leaves fall onto the mud, they are decomposed by
bacteria. Prawns and crabs eat the partly decomposed leaves.
-Crab-eating macaques, a type of monkey, climb through the trees and
catch crabs on the tree roots and mud.
4.2 Different ecosystem
• Sea ice in the arctic Ocean
-Seals hunt for fish in the water, but have to come to the surface to
breathe air.
-Polar bears patrol the ice, looking for seals to kill and eat. Polar bears are
good swimmers, and can move from one ice floe to another.
-Arctic foxes also look for food on the ice.
-Enough light passes through the ice to allow tiny algae to grow on the
underside of the ice floes.
-Tiny shrimp-like organisms eat the algae. Fish eat the shrimp-like
organisms.
4.2 Different Ecosystem
• Rice paddy
-Not all ecosystem are natural. Rice paddy is farmed by people.
-At some times of year the paddy fields are flooded with water.Algae grow in
this shallow water, and on the mud at the sides of the flooded areas.
-Fish swim into the flooded paddies from the irrigation canals.Frogs and
dragonflies breed in the water.
-Because the water is shallow, it heats up quickly during the day, and cools down
quickly at night.
-Farmers often add fertiliser to the paddy fields, making not only the rice but
also the algae grow faster, providing more food for the animals.
-Many birds feed in and around the paddy fields.
4.3 Intruders in an ecosystem
• Introduced species in New Zealand
-Before human arrived in New Zealand, there were no predatory
mammals there, many of the native species of birds nest on the
ground. Such as kiwi, a bird that cannot fly. Their eggs were left on the
ground since no predators were there to feed on their eggs.
-When human first arrived in New Zealand, Human brought species of
animals with them that did not belong in New Zealand. For example,
the rats stowed away on their boats. Raw now live in most of the
country. The rats eats bird’s egg and defenceless young bird.
4.3 Intruders in an ecosystem
• Since then, many more species have been introduced to New Zealand.
Farmers brought sheep to farm on their wools and meat.
• Rabbits were brought on sailing ships to use as food. But the rabbits
escaped and began to eat grass in the sheep pastures, so people
brought stoats from Europe to control the rabbits.
• Now stoats have spread all over New Zealand. They are fierce hunters
and breed rapidly. They can kill and eat birds much larger than
themselves. Stoats have made several species of native bird extinct,
including the laughing owl and the New Zealand thrush. Stoats eat
almost 60% of kiwi chikcs.
4.3 Intruders in an ecosystem
• People in New Zealand are now trying to eradicate stoats, but this is
vey difficult to do. The best is to control their numbers.
• Scientists think that 53 species of native bird in New Zealand have
become extinct since humans arrived. The extinction have been partly
caused by people hunting and killing the birds, but mostly because of
introduced invasive species.
4.4 Bioaccumulation
• DDT
• DDT is an insecticide. Which is used to kill insects.
• It was introduced in 1940s. It used to kill mosquitoes, fleas and insects that eat crops.
• DDT is good at killing insects, But gradually people began to release that it was also
harming animals that no one wanted to kill.
• DDT does not break down, which means It is a persistent chemical.It will stays in the
environment for many years, it is not broken down by the decomposer.
• When DDT is sprayed, some of the mare carried up high into the air and being blown far
away from there it was used.
• The DDT will get into an animal’s body and will stay there for the whole life of the
organisms.
• DDT is poisonous, For example, it makes the shells of bird’s egg very thin and easy to
 4.4 Bioaccumulation
• Bioaccumulation and biomagnification
-Imagine that DDt has been sprayed onto some water, the tuny algae take up
some of the DDT. Shrimps eat the algae, and fish eat the shrimps. The bird
eat the fish.
-All the DDT in the algae that a shrimp eats over its lifetime accumulates,
because it cannot be broken down, in its body. Thr more DDT it takes in, the
more DDT it gets in its body, this process is called bioaccumulation
-All of the DDT in all of the shrimps that a fish eats accumulates in the fish’s
body and eventually eaten by the fish. All the DDT accumulates in the fish is
now in the bird’s body.
-That means the concentration of DDT in an animal’s body increases as you
go up the food chain. This is called biomagnification