Adaptation and

Variation

Adaptation• Are characteristics of an

organism that makes it suited to its environment.

• Adaptation may be: – structural – Behavioral– Body processesAdaptations allow organisms to be

more successful in its environment.

• Structural adaptation: are physical adaptations such as: broad leaves to absorb more light or birds hallow bones that allow them to fly.

• Behavioral adaptation: are things an organism does in order to survive, such as: migration, and hibernation.

• Body processes: allows organism to become more successful in its environment, such as: humans have a hormone called insulin which helps regulate blood sugar levels or a dolphin or a whale can hold their breath longer under water than humans.

Food Chain and Food Webs:

• Food chain represent a flow of energy within an ecosystem.

• Ecosystems are communities of different species interacting with each other and their environment.

Food chains are distributed among, producers, consumers and decomposers.

• Producers: are the photosynthetic organisms that make food material.

• Consumers: organisms that eat other organisms. – Consumers of plant only are called

herbivores. Consumer of meat are called carnivores.

– Primary consumers: eat producers.– Secondary consumers: eat other

consumers. Predators are an example of secondary consumers.

• Decomposers: the last step in the food chain is not always obvious or even visible to us. When any organism dies or produces waste products, there is still energy that can be used by other living things.

• Bacteria and fungi belong to this group, their job is to consume the remaining food material and use up the remaining energy in the body of dead organisms.

Food Webs

• In nature feeding relationships are not always simple. When organism from one food chain feed on organisms in another food chain, the food chains become interconnected.

• This is called Food Web.

Copy the following questions:

– List the names of the decomposers:– List the name of the producers:– List the names of the herbivores

and omnivores:– List the names of the carnivores:– List the names of the scavengers:

http://www.gould.edu.au/foodwebs/africa.htm