Biodiversity continued...

Many of the terms that were thrown around in the first post about biodiversity may have been a bit hard to understand. This post is going to break down the terminology used in ecology. So, in a way I guess this is more of an ecology post not a biodiversity post, I'm just cross referencing! Hopefully, this will lead to less confusion... not more.

So, starting at the broad and bringing it in a bit we will start with ecology: what is it and what do ecologists do all day? Well, ecology is— in the simplest of terms— the study of the relationships of organisms and their environments. I hope I'm not plagiarizing anyone there, but that is pretty much it. Now this includes all the relationships in an organisms environment: interactions with other organisms in the same species, other animals, plants, climactic changes, bacterium... all these interactions are what ecologists study.

There are a few different types of relationships that pretty much cover the bases of all the interactions. Relationships come in the following categories:

Mutualism- both sides of the relationship gain something
Commensalism- benefit for one and no effect on the other
Predation- this covers herbivory and parasitism as well. It is a gain for one and a loss for the other
Amensalism- negative for one and neutral for the other
Competition- negative for both parties
Neutralism- just what it sounds like— no effect on either

By studying these relationships you are also studying populations, genetics, global patterns, different biomes and more. As an ecologist, one must be a bit of a zoologist, botanist, geneticist, statistician, and writer. Not exactly an easy task.

I hope this gives everyone a better understanding of what ecology is. I will continue this series every now and again by breaking things up into pretty simple terminology (I hope). If you have any questions or want to know about a certain area of study (any topic is ok) just let us know!

If you want to find out more about ecology, there are tons of textbooks out there, but one I found really easy to follow was Ecology: concepts and applications by Manuel C. Molles, Jr.

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A bit about biodiversity

First things first, I am apologizing for the horrible quality of the first video. I made it small so I could up load it easier and didn't realize so much of the quality of the original would be lost. I promise to update the video soon to a better quality. Also, I plan on doing these about once a week or bi weekly, so keep checking for new ones. Don't worry though, there will be lots of other content I will include on here as well. It will only be this way for a while (I hope) as I get better with the film editing equipment, the videos may be more frequent.

Now, on to the topic!

Biodiversity is a term that seems to be thrown around quite a bit, but what does it mean? Well, it can mean all the speciation in an area, an ecosystem, a certain biome, or even the entire earth. for example, my house (area) does not have a lot of biodiversity compared to St. Thomas' dry forests (biome), but the biodiversity increases a bit up Crown Mountain, the mountain I live on, due to a pocket of moisture that occurs crating a unique ecosystem. Now that I have you thoroughly confused, I will break that down a bit more.

Okay, biomes are not to be confused with ecosystems. A biome is an area of ecologically similar ecosystems (think communities of organisms) that is climatically and geographically defined. There are a few factors that go into determining a biome. On the climate side, it's limited to humidity, altitude, and latitude. For example: Tropical (latitude) Rain forest (humidity) is a biome. If you took down some of that forest to build a resort, the area around that resort plus the resort is an ecosystem. In ecosystems you include abiotic factors as well (think buildings, fences and man's interventions).

This is a tropical rain forest. The whole of it is a biome.

If you were studying the specific animals and plants
around this waterfall, you would be studying an
ecosystem within the biome!

Hopefully, everyone understood that! You are now officially on your way to become expert ecologists... well, at least well versed enough in science that people will think you're smart and so interesting to talk to at the next social event.

By the way all these pictures are Copyright to me under Creative Commons. You can use them, just give me credit somewhere please!

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