Happiness

Habitat vs Microhabitat A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism.It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds (influences and is utilized by) a species population. While microhabitat is often used to describe the small-scale physical requirements of a particular organism or population. A microhabitat is often a smaller habitat within a larger one. For example, a fallen log inside a forest can provide microhabitat for insects that are not found in the wider forest habitat outside such logs. Microenvironment is the immediate surroundings and other physical factors of an individual plant or animal within its habitat.

Niche   In ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in an ecosystem. More formally, the niche includes how a population responds to the abundance of its resources and enemies (e. g., by growing when resources are abundant, and predators, parasites and pathogens are scarce) and how it affects those same factors (e. g., by reducing the abundance of resources through consumption and contributing to the population growth of enemies by falling prey to them). The abiotic or physical environment is also part of the niche because it influences how populations affect, and are affected by, resources and enemies.The description of a niche may include descriptions of the organism's life history, habitat, and place in the food chain.According to the competitive exclusion principle, no two species can occupy the same niche in the same environment for a long time.

Tolerance Range of Animal to Gradient of Temperature   Organisms have ranges of tolerance for environmental factors.The range will be the high and low extremes of tolerance for an environmental factor. Organisms have specific requirements for successful growth, development and reproduction. Example: There may be a coldest temperature and hottest temperature an animal can survive in their environment.  That is their range of tolerance.   Animal has optimum condition too. optimum condition is a condition that are most favorable for an organism to survive, grow and reproduce. This optimum is somewhere within the range of tolerance for that organism.   If an animal has a range of tolerance for temperature of 0-85 degree F somewhere within that temperature range will be the temperature that the animal grows best.  

Ectotherm and Endotherm Endotherms generate most of the heat they need internally. When it's cold out, they increase metabolic heat production to keep their body temperature constant. Because of this, the internal body temperature of an endotherm is more or less independent of the temperature of the environment. The sum total of the biochemical reactions that take place in an organism are called its metabolism . Metabolic reactions involve breaking down fuel molecules, such as sugars, and using the energy stored in them to do work. The processes that convert energy stored in food molecules into biological work are not very efficient, so heat is generated as a byproduct. The higher an organism's metabolic rate—the amount of chemical fuel it burns in a given period of time—the more heat it will produce. So, as an endotherm is exposed to colder external temperatures, it will increase its metabolic rate, burn more fuel, and produce extra heat to keep its body ...

Condition and Resources Condition is Physicochemical features of the environment that may be altered by the activities of living organisms, but not consumed.  The example of conditions are temperature, relative humidity, pH, salinity, current velocity, soil structure and pollutant concentration. While resource is quantities of something that can reduced by the activities of a living organism during its growth and development. The example of resources  are solar radiation, inorganic materials - CO 2 , water, oxygen, mineral nutrients (macro-, micronutrients), food, and space. There are some effect of condition. They are: 1.      For each species, there is some level/concentration/intensity of a factor at which it does best - its optimum for that factor. 2.      Optimum conditions result in individuals with the highest fitness. 3.      Higher or lower levels of a factor result in re...

Hierarchy in Ecology Individual, Species, Organism:   An individual is any living thing or organism. Individuals do not breed with individuals from other groups. Animals, unlike plants, tend to be very definite with this term because some plants can cross-breed with other fertile plants. In the diagram above, you will notice that Gill, the goldfish, is interacting with its environment, and will only crossbreed with other gold fishes just like her. Population: A group of individuals of a given species that live in a specific geographic area at a given time. (example is Gill and his family and friends and other fishes of Gill’s species) Note that populations include individuals of the same species, but may have different genetic makeup such as hair/eye/skin colour and size between themselves and other populations. Community: This includes all the populations in a specific area at a given time. A community includes populations of organisms of different species. In t...

Tracking down water pollution through DNA of algae Diatoms between 0.01 and 0.02 mm, consisting of a single cell surrounded by an artificially colored silica skeleton. The alga in green is present in clean environments, while the orange one lives in more polluted water. Credit: Laure Apothéloz-Perret-Gentil, UNIGE Diatoms are a group of unicellular algae particularly sensitive to changes that affect their aquatic environment. This is why they are used as bioindicators for the biological monitoring of water quality. However, their microscopic identification in river samples requires a lot of time and skills. Biologists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, have succeeded in establishing a water quality index based solely on the DNA sequences of the diatoms present in the samples, without needing to identify each species visually. This study, published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources , presents a revolutionary tool to process a very large number ...

Ecology Ecology is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of organisms, the interaction among organisms, and the interactions between organisms and their abiotic environment. Ecologists try to understand the inner workings of natural ecosystems and the species they contain. Ecological principles also play a major role in generating solutions to problems of applied interest, such as the use of predatory insects as agent of biological control, the dynamics of disease in human and other populations, the preservation of biodiversity in the face of anthropogenic changes, the fate of pollutants in natural and artificial ecosystems, and the effects of fossil fuel use on the global climate. As a result, undergraduate Biology majors need a thorough grounding in ecology not only to pursue graduate study in academic ecology, but also as preparation for careers in applied fields such as environmental management,ecotoxicology, environmental...