Summary #7 A Blood System

*HEART*

Summary #6-How Ecosystems Change

Ecological Succession: The gradual replacement of one community by another.

Pioneer Species: The first species living in an area.

Pioneer Community: The first community living in an area.

Climax  Community: The final stage of succession in an area, unless a major change happens.



Summary #5Places to Live Around the World

*Tundra Biome*

In the very cold places of the world, isn´t easy to survive. The soil is frozen, its top surface thawing only during summer, and no trees can grow. Yet plants and amimals that are adapted for the harsh condition thrive. This biome is called tundra. Most of the world´s tundra is found in the north polar region. It is called Artic Tundra. There is a small amount of tundra on parts of Antartica that are not covered with ice. Plus, tundra is found on high altitude montains and is called alpine tundra.

*Taiga*

Taiga, also called boreal forest, is the largest land biome.These forests are found in a broad belt across Europe, Asia and North America : about two thirds are in Siberia, and the rest are in Scandinavia, Alaska and Canada.
In this biome, summers are short and mild and the winters are long, cold and dry.
Plants are mostly evergreen conifers with leaves like needles, such as pine, fir and spruce. Leaves like this minimise water loss and do not get weighed down with snow. The snow slides off the needles. The forest canopy lets in a restricted amount of sunlight, and this limits the understorey growth. The ground is covered with a thick layer of needles and dead twigs, matted together by fungus
Rainfall, or precipitation, mostly falls as snow, usually 40-100 cm each year. Soil is thin and lacking in nutrients.

Animals found in taiga include woodpeckers, hawks, moose, bear, weasel, lynx, fox, wolf, deer, hares, chipmunks, shrews, and bats. Mammals living in the boreal forests have all adapted in various ways to survive the long cold winters. Generally they have heavy fur coats and many hibernate through the winter.
There is extensive logging in boreal forests which is threatening their survival.

*Desert Biome*

A desert is a place that gets just bit of rain every year.

Some deserts not get rain at all.

A desert can be very hot at daytime and cold at night.

Some desert are cold all the time.

*Grassland*

Grasslands are big open areas that get between 25 and 75cm of rain per year. This is less rain than a forest gets and more than a desert  gets.

Grasslands are found on every continent except Antartica. About one quarter of Earth´s land is in the grasslands biome. Grasslands have different names in different countries, such as pampas (South America), prairies (North America), savannahs (Africa), or steppes (Asia).

There are 3 types of grasslands:

*Tall Graslands*

*Mixed Grasslands*

*Short Grasslands*

*Decidous Forest*

Location: Midlatitudes

Climate: Relatively mild summers and cold winter, 76-127cm (30-50 inches) of precipitation a year.

Soil: Rich topsoil over clay.

Plants: Hardwoods such as oaks, beeches, hickories, maples.

Animals: Wolves, deer, bears, and a wide varity of small mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and insects.

*Tropical Rain Forest*

Location: Near the Equator

Climate: Hot all year round, 200-460 cm (80-180 inches) of rain a year.

Soil: Nutrient-poor

Plants: Greatest diversity of any biome; vines, orchids, ferns, and a wide variety of trees.

Animals: More species of insects, reptiles, and amphibians than any place else; monkeys, other small and large mammals, including in some places elephants, all sorts of colorful birds.

Summary#4 Surviving in Ecosystem

Surviving in Ecosystems

Simbiosis = Two organisms relate together by helping or harming each other.

Mutualism = Two organism benefit each other.

Parasitism = One organism benefits and the other harms.

Commensalism = Two organisms that benefit each each other not harming but protecting.

Summary #3 Cycles of Life

Water Cycle

The water cycle is the continous movement of water between Earth´s surface and the air, changing from liquid to gas to liquid.



Carbon cycle

The continous transfer of carbon between the atmosphere and living things.



Nitrogen Cycle

The transfer of nitrogen from the atmosphere to plants and back to the atmosphere and directly into plants again.



Summary#2 Food Chains and Food Webs

Food chains and food webs are met food webs describe the successive transfer of energy from plants to the animals that eat them, and to the animals that eat those animals, and so on. A food chain is a model for this process which assumes that the transfer of energy within the community is relatively simple. A food chain in a grassland ecosystem, for example, might be: Insects eat grass, and mice eat insects, and fox eat mice. But such an outline is not exactly accurate, and many more species of plants and animals are actually involved in the transfer of energy. Rodents often feed on both plants and insects, and some animals, such as predatory birds, feed on several kinds of rodents. This more complex description of the way energy flows through an ecosystem is called a food web. Food webs can be thought of as interconnected or intersecting food chainshods of describing an ecosystem by describing how energy flows from one species to another.Food web is the overlapping food chains in a community.

[FOOD WEB]

[FOOD CHAIN]

Summary#1 *Living Things and Their Environment*

An ecosystem is all the living and nonliving things in an area interacting with each other. Most ecosystems are much larger than a jar. Some, like the prairie ecosystem of North America, the deserts of Africa, and the rain forests of Brazil, cover large areas of a country or continent. Freshwater ecosystem cover less space than saltwater ecosystems. Saltwater ecosystems can cover entire oceans. It doesn´t matter where they are or what they look like, all ecosystems have the same parts. All living things need certain nonliving things in order to survive. Abiotic factors include water, minerals, sunlight, air, climate, and soil. All organisms need water. Living things need minerals, such as calcium, iron, phosphorous, and nitrogen. Some living things, like plants and algae, need sunlight to make food. Animals need oxygen to produce the energy for their bodies. Plants an algae need carbon dioxide. The environment must also have the right temperature for organisms to survive. Eac kind of organism, whether an animal, plant, fungus, protist, or bacterium, is a member of a single species. All the organisms of a species living in the same area make up a population. Each species in an ecosystem also has a role or place in the activities of its community.The world is a place of changes. One day the wheater may be dry and cold. The next day it may be wet and warm. In nature ecosystem tend to stay in balance. One population controls the number in another population. Communities help preserve and enrich the soil. Some organisms contribute to the health and well-being of others.