Living Things in their Environment

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Living Things in their Environment
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Contents

• Adaptation Camel and Polar Bear
• Competition Plants Animals
• Impact of Humans
• Human Population Growth
• Urbanisation Industrialisation
• Effect of Fertilisers
• Effect of Pesticides
• Fishing Forestry
• Pollution
• Global Warming
• Energy Transfer
• Carbon Carbon Cycle
• Nitrogen Cycle

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Adaptation

• Camel
• well suited for desert
• - slit-like nostrils, two rows of eyelashes to
  keep sand out
• - wide, flat feet to stop them sinking into sand
• - thick fur to keep sun off their skin

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Adaptation

• Polar Bear
• well suited for Arctic
• - black skin absorbs heat well
• - white fur camouflages against snow and ice
• - thick layers of fat and fur for insulation
• - wide, hairy soles avoid bear from slipping

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Competition

• Organisms compete with each other for certain
  essential needs for survival. Survival of the
  Fittest!
• Plants compete for
• - light for photosynthesis
• - water
• - nutrients minerals
• Animals compete for
• - food
• - water
• - mates to reproduce
• - living space

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Impact of Humans

• Humans pose a huge threat to lives of animals,
  plants and their environment
• Our impact is so great due to
• - technologies that change the world so quickly
• - population increase
• - consumption of natural resources, and waste

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Human Population Growth

• Humans can adapt to survive in almost all
  habitats and climates. The human population is
  increasing rapidly and is threatening the
  environment
• The population will eventually be limited by
  these factors
• - food and water supply
• - disease and pollution
• - over-crowding
• - sudden changes in climate

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Urbanisation Industrialisation

• More and more people are moving into the cities.
  The effects
• - increased pollution due to traffic, energy
  consumption and waste production
• - farmland is built on, land taken out of food
  production
• - loss of natural habitats, as cities and roads
  are built
• - rural communities and cultures dissolve as
  people leave to live in urban areas
• Development of industries. The effects
• - non-renewable fossil fuels are used for energy
• - release of greenhouse gases speeds up global
  warming

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Effect of Fertilisers

• Intensive farming can damage the environment.
• Fertilisers containing plant nutrients are
  sprayed onto fields
• Plants grow faster and boost crop yields.
• Rain means may wash nutrients from the fields and
  into rivers and lakes (this is called run-off).
• Eutrophication (hyper-nutirtion from fertisiler
  pollution) occurs which can kill almost
  everything living.
• Algae grows fast using up lots of oxygen and
  blocking sunlight
• Plants begin to die providing food for microbes
• Microbes increase the competition for oxygen
• Water becomes de-oxygenated causing aquatic life
  to die

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Effect of Pesticides

• Pesticides used to kill insects and other crop
  damaging micro-organisms can effect the food
  chain
• Pesticides can be abosrbed by small aquatic
  animals
• Fish each the animals, which have eaten pesticide
• Birds eat the fish

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Fishing Forestry

• Fishing
• Unsustainability the using up of resources
  faster than they are produced so that they will
  not continue in the future
• e.g. North Sea Cod are over-fished so are
  reproducing slower than are being caught. Effect
  ? population is heavily declining
• Forestry
• Humans burn wood or clear land for farming ?
  deforestation
• 1) destroys habitats
• 2) causes soil erosion ? barren land and
  flooding
• 3) causes pollution from combustion
• 4) increased levels of carbon dioxide as loss of
  photosynthesis

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Pollution

• Atmospheric Caused by combustion, exhaust fumes,
  livestock, waste dumps
• Effects
• - smoke, which damages air quality
• - carbon dioxide and Methane, which cause
  climate change
• - sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which
  mix with rainwater to form acid rain
• - carbon monoxide, which is poisonous to humans
  and animals
• Water Caused by deposition of substances into
  seas, lakes, rivers
• Effects
• - sewage and oil, which destroy habitats and
  kill animals
• - fertilisers and pesticides, which damage
  ecosystems

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Global Warming

• The Earth is heating up as CO2 levels are
  increasing why?
• Earths atmosphere is an insulating layer
• It lets the Suns heat in but also stops some
  going out
• Increase in carbon dioxide due to
• 1) Deforestation (loss in photosynthesis)
• 2) Combustion of fossil fuels
• Increase in methane due to
• 1) livestock farming
• 2) rotting plant material
• 3) drilling for oil and gas

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Energy Transfer

• In every ecosystem, energy is transferred along
  food chains from one trophic level to the next.
  Energy is absorbed up a food chain, but at each
  trophic level, this amount of energy decreases
  rapidly
• 1st photosynthesis
• 2nd onwards respiration
• excretion
• movement
• transport

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Carbon Carbon Cycle

• Living organisms need carbon to
• make food (green plants photosynthesise)
• make energy (through respiration)
• make new cells for growth and repair
• Carbon cycles through ecosystems, moving
  repeatedly from one organism to another, and
  between organisms and the environment.

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Nitrogen Cycle

• Living organisms need nitrogen to make proteins.
  They cannot get it directly from the air because
  nitrogen gas is too stable to react inside an
  organism to make new compounds.
• Nitrogen must be changed into a more reactive
  form to allow plants and animals to use it.
  Plants can take up and use nitrogen when it is in
  the form of nitrates or ammonium salts. Nitrogen
  fixation is the process when it is changed into a
  more reactive substance.

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Summary

• Organisms adapt to suit their environment
• Plants and animals compete for certain things to
  survive
• Humans impact on the environment and the lives of
  others
• Habitats and the environment are destroyed by
  urbanisation industrialisation, use of
  fertilisers, use of pesticides, fishing
  forestry, pollution
• Global warming is increasing rapidly due to human
  impact
• Energy is transferred through food web trophic
  levels
• Carbon is a necessity to life, and is transferred
  through the carbon cycle
• Nitrogen is a necessity to life, and is
  transferred through the nitrogen cycle