INTRODUCTION

Organismic Biology is a survey course of the diversity of plants and animals

on Earth. We will emphasize biodiversity, evolutionary relationships,
adaptations, and ecology of plants and animals.

Biodiversity generally refers to a diversity or variability of living organisms

present on this planet earth and other species which have driven to
extinction million years ago. The term Biodiversity is also referred to as the
Biological diversity which mainly denotes to the total number of different
living species

Biodiversity in Plants
The diversity of plants on the planet earth is an important resource for food,
shelter, and agriculture. About thousands of plant crop species have been
identified, developed, used and relied on for the purpose of food and
agricultural production in human history. Through the process of
photosynthesis, plants provide us with the oxygen which we breathe and
the sugars that provide the primary fuel for life.

Biodiversity in Animals
Similarly to the plants, the biodiversity of animals is vast and there are
several animal species which have been trained, domesticated and used
for the food production, for the agriculture and are the primary biological
capital for livestock development. This plays a vital role in food safety and
also in maintaining the rural development.

EVOLUTIONARY RELATIONSHIP:

Plants and animals evolved together, so it is not surprising that there are
many complex plant/animal relationships. This process of interdependent
evolution of two or more species is called coevolution. Some relationships
are beneficial to both parties, while others have a clear benefit for one at
the expense, or even death, of the other.
Adaptations are those differences that appear in a subset of individuals of a
plant or animal species that turn out to improve their survival chances in a
specific environment. Those individuals, therefore, tend to produce more
successful offspring for that environment. These changes may be physical
or behavioral, or both. Plant and animal adaptations are the essence of
survival and evolution. All living species of plants and animals have
adapted over time in response to conditions.

Animal Adaptations:
Animal adaptations may be physical or behavioral, or a combination of the
two. Physical adaptations to the environment. Animals with useful traits that
help them survive in their environment are the animals that survive to have
offspring, to which they tend to pass down the successful trait.

Plant Adaptations:
Although they lack a central nervous system that responds to its
environment in the same fashion as animals, plants nonetheless make
behavioral adaptions as well as physical adaptations. Plant adaptations are
not more rudimentary than animal adaptations. If anything, plant
adaptations can be more sophisticated, as they are often more attuned to
the plant's specific environment.

Ecology, or ecological science, is the branch of biology that studies the

relationship of plants and animals to their physical and biological
environment. The physical environment includes light and heat or solar
radiation, moisture, wind, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients in soil, water
and atmosphere. The biological environment includes organisms of the
same kind as well as other types of plants and animals.

Plant ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology which studies the distribution

and abundance of plants, the effects of environmental factors upon the
abundance of plants, and the interactions among and between plants and
other organisms.
Plants are the most important part of the ecosystem,their role is as follows-

1.They provide oxygen for organisms to survive.

2.They are able to reduce the problem of

pollution, by using carbon dioxide.

3.These are also the basis of most food webs as

producers of food for herbivores and

ultimately carnivores.

4. Plants also provide shelter to the birds, animals and insects etc.

5.Roots of the plants hold soil tightly and prevent soil erosion.

6.plants provide us wood,cooton,fibre,rubber,wood,food

crop,fruits,medicines etc.

Animal ecology concerns the relationships of individuals to their

environments, including physical factors and other organisms, and the
consequences of these relationships for evolution, population growth and
regulation, interactions between species, the composition of biological
communities, and energy flow and nutrient cycling through the ecosystem.

All animals have important roles in the ecosystem. There seems to be an

ecological balance between all animals in nature. Some animals help to
bring out the nutrients from the cycle while others help in decomposition,
carbon, and nitrogen cycle. All animals, insects, and even micro organisms
play a role in the ecosystem. All animals and plants in the ecosystem co-
exist and balance each other out, esigned for all the different species of the
world, where each has a role to play without disturbing each other and
without taking the ecological balance off.