Organisms and their
environment Summary
Made by Hala Alaa
Grade9AG
Under supervision of Mrs Lamis
Ecosystem:
An ecosystem consists of all living and non-living components in a
particular area.
Examples: ponds, grasslands, tropical forests.
Habitat & Niche
A habitat is the natural environment where an organism lives.
A niche refers to an organism’s role or function within its ecosystem
— including what it eats, how it survives, and how it interacts with
other species.
Feeding Relationships
Producers (like green plants) make their own food using sunlight
(photosynthesis).
Consumers eat other organisms:
Primary consumers: herbivores are
organisms who get its energy by feeding
on plants
Secondary/tertiary consumers:
carnivores are organisms who get their
energy by feeding on other organisms
Decomposers (e.g. fungi, bacteria) break down dead organisms and
recycle nutrients.
Energy transfer is shown through:
Food chains (linear)
Food webs (interconnected chains)
Pyramids of numbers, biomass, and energy (show how energy is
lost at each trophic level)
Energy loss:
When an organism use glucose and other organic compounds for
respiration , some of the energy released from the glucose is lost as
heat energy to the environment
When one organism eats another it rarely eats all of it for example:the
grasshopper in a food chain may eat almost all of the plant but not the
roots so not all of the energy in the plant is transferred to the
grasshopper and same happens to the rest of the food chain
The Carbon Cycle
Describes how carbon moves through the
environment via:
Photosynthesis (removes CO₂)
Respiration, combustion, and decomposition
(release CO₂)
Human activities (such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation)
increase CO₂ levels
Population Growth and the Sigmoid Curve
Population growth over time typically follows a sigmoid (S-shaped)
curve with four phases:
Lag phase: slow initial growth as
individuals adapt and there isn't much
cells to reproduce
Exponential phase: rapid increase
due to ideal conditions and plenty of
resources.
Stationary phase: growth slows/stabilizes as limiting factors (like
food, space) or maybe it produced extra waste that it is killing itself
A decline phase may follow if resources become too scarce or
conditions worsen.
Age pyramid
It’s a diagram showing the relative
numbers of individuals of different
ages in a population
For example :if all the organisms
in the younger age groups grow up
and reproduce ,the population will
increase
Or if the sizes of the younger ages
groups are only a little larger than
the older ones ,so this population should not change much in size
