Tuesday, May 11, 2010

How are evolution and ecology related?

In biology we learn all about life but the year is broken up into units (cells, genetics, evolution, physiology, and ecology).  It is easy to see how genetics relates to cells - cells have DNA/genes in them.  Physiology is related to cells, because cells make up our different organ systems.  Eevolution and ecology are closely related.  How?

Read the following article:  Evolution Impacts Environment: Fundamental Shift in How Biologists Perceive Relationship Between Evolution and Ecology from sciencedaily.com.

5 comments:

  1. While studying guppies, biologists noticed that guppies from one stream have a different apitite from guppies from another stream. Their adaptations for their stream led to differences in diet, so when the guppies had similar enviroments the two groups had very different inmpacts on their ecosystem. This shows how closely evolution affects the ecosystems.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Evolution and ecology both have similar and different things. Evolution is about a type of species evolving into a different type of species, but is still keeping its roots. Ecology is the study of the ecosystem and how it works together to maintain life there possible. One similar thing in both of them is that they evolve together. Some species evlve in order to adapt to their new environment or their new ecosystem. Some ecologists might not believe in evolution because evoli=ution treats organisms as constants. Scientists made an experiment which included two different type of guppies. They were to be switching environments. Some results were "from the more diverse fish communities ate more insect larvae while the low-predation guppies -- guppies from the simple fish communities -- ate more algae", "guppies from the more diverse fish communities -- had less plant production and oxygen consumption, a slower breakdown of leaves that had fallen into the water and a slower accumulation of detritus, the breakdown product of leaves." This leads to share a oiece of evolution and ecology. The fish evolve how they ate and what they did to be able to live in their new environment.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Most people belive that ecology shapes evolution but in new studies scientists are seeing that evolution sometimes affects ecology. They tested guppies from different streams. One type came from a diverse stream with predators and one came from a not so diverse stream with some non predators. These two types of guppies were adapted to their habitat. Each guppie group was put into its own artificial stream with similar ecosystems. The guppies influenced their stream and changed it. This is the opposite of what normally happens.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ecology is the way that organisms interact with their environment. Ecology has a large impact on forming new species and modifying living ones. It was shown that ecology and evolution are closely related. There was a study on guppies and it was shown that guppies can evolve very rapidly. The guppies were split up into two different types of stream communities in the Trinidad. One of the streams contained a large variety of fish including many predators and the other with few species of fish and less predatory species. The guppies found in the stream with lots of predators had adapted and changed so that they showed escape qualities that they hadnt before and they produce more babies. The guppies even showed a different body shape then before. It was shown that after only 4 weeks the guppies had changed from the impact of their ecosystems.

    -Alicia R. 6*

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ecology is how organisms interact with each other in different habitats. Evolution is how animals and plants adapt and become most fit for their environment. They are related because they both work off of each other to make sure the animals can survive. There was a test done on guppies where they separated the same type of guppies and put them into different environments, one with lots of predators and one with very little. The more predators the more guppies produced and the more camouflaged as well.

    ReplyDelete