Ecology of Life

Prepared by: Submitted to:

Jason Dubas Engr. Jaime Palero
Melvin Salazar
Karl DarenceSan Andres
Eddy Villafuerte
I. Ecology

- Defines ecosystems as independent population of organisms interacting with their

physical and chemical environment.

II. Ecology of Life

- All life forms deserves to live and interact in their environment.

- The interaction of living things or life forms to their environment is affected by

interdependent factors.

- The natural environment provides the best / optimum environment for life forms to live
and perform lufe functions like reproduction and metabolism.

- When there is a disturbance or catastrophe whether man-made or natural, the

environment maintains resilency through various HOMEOSTATIC MECHANISM.

III. Homeostasis

- The ability to maintain / remain in a state of balance.

Ex. Population of Organisms

Lynx (Predator) Hare (Prey)

Key points:

● The lynx population increases if there is enough supply of food (hare).

● When the lynx population increase, the hare population may decrease or eventually
outstripped because they serve as food for the lynx.
Other Example (Sea / Marine food chain)

Kelp →→→→→→→→→→Sea urchin →→→→→→→→→→Sea otters

↓ ↓ ↓

Food Predators of kelp Predators of Sea urchin

(Producers) (Herbivores) (Carnivores)

IV. HOMEOSTATIC MECHANISM (Physiologic / Environmental)

F E E D B A C K S

Negative Feedback Positive Feedback

Physiologic:

●Fever is response to control increase of ●Too much fever may result to convulsion and
infection when an organism is sick. death

Environmental:

A. Natural cause Climate change

●Volcanic eruption / typhoon that cause ●Can end in another ice age and eventually and
destruction of habitat and death of some hopefully another state of equilibrium.
animals.
V. LOCAL EXAMPLES OF HOMEOSTATIC FEEDBACK

1. NAGA CITY - Cutting of trees along magsaysay avenue to favor road widening and
economic growth. (Can lead to increased urban temperature)

-May result to increase of CO2 build up in

the area.

-CO2 attracts more heat energy resulting to

high temperature.

2. Land Conversion

- Converting Brgy. Calauag into housing area.

CALAUAG is a swampy

area in Naga City.

Converting the swampy

Area into subdivision &

Housing area resulted

to

Flooding, increase of mosquitoes, rise

and occurences of dengue (Dengue Hotspot)

and decreasing land area for food production.

• VI. CONCLUSION
• Engineers must appreciate the fundamental
principles of ecology and design inconsonance
with these principles in order to reduce the
adverse impacts on fragile ecosystems. The
engineer’s job is made even harder when he or
she must balance ecosystem damage against
potential human health damage. The inclusion of
ecological principles in engineering decisions is a
major component of the environmental
engineering profession.