Unit 4 Lesson 1 What Are Ecosystems? - …Author Benjamin Gertzog Created Date 2/3/2018 9:58:49 PM

Unit 4 Lesson 1 What Are Ecosystems?

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Animals and Plants at Home


• Everything that surrounds a living thing is its environment.

• This includes living and nonliving things.

• Your desk, teacher, and books are all part of your classroom environment. So is the air.




• An ecosystem is all of the living and nonliving things in a place.

• In an ecosystem, living things interact with each other and the nonliving parts of their environment.






• Living things in the same ecosystem share resources.

• Many of them also share a habitat.

• A habitat is the space where a plant or an animal lives.










Take a look at this forest. What kinds of things are in the bird’s environment?


Communities of Populations


• Wolves, bears, snakes, birds, and many other plants and animals live in Yellowstone National Park.

• A population is all of one kind of organism living in the same area.



•All the wolves in Yellowstone National Park make up the wolf population there.




• Animal and plant populations in an area may be part of the same community.




• An ecosystem can have many different communities. For example, a bull snake is part of the Yellowstone National Park community along with wolves and bison.




Explain the differences between a population and a community.

Population:

Community:




Desert ecosystems have plants and animals with adaptations that help them survive in dry areas


Living on the Land


• There are many different ecosystems on land. Forest ecosystems have lots of trees.


Living on the Land


• Ecosystems found on the high sides of mountains are cold most of the year.


Living on the Land



Under the Water


• A lot of the planet is covered in water. This means there are a lot of ocean ecosystems.

• Animals like sea turtles and whales live in ocean waters.

• Fresh water ecosystems have much less salt than ocean waters. Frogs, ducks, and many kinds of fish live in rivers, lakes, ponds, and streams.


Under the Water


Describe how the otters and the clown fish use their resources in the environment.

Otters:

Clownfish:


Under the Water



Under the Water


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Unit 4 Lesson 1 What Are Ecosystems? - …Author Benjamin Gertzog Created Date 2/3/2018 9:58:49 PM