Environment is the physical environment of organisms. The main environments of life are water, air, organism. Habitat - that part of nature, which env. living organisms with which they directly interact.

8. Ecosystem. Biogeocenosis. Anthropobiogeocenosis. The main ecosystems of the planet.

Biogeocenosis - a set of cohabiting populations of different species, microorganisms, plants, animals. These populations inhabit a certain area of ​​land or a reservoir that is quite homogeneous in terms of its conditions - a biotope.

Biocenosis is an integral part of ecosystems.

Ecosystem - a set of organisms and non-living components of the environment, during the interaction of which a complete biotic cycle occurs with the participation of producers, decomposers, consumers. Regardless of the degree of complexity, ecosystems are characterized by the species composition, the number of species included in it, their biomass, the ratio of individual trophic groups, the intensity of production processes and the destruction of organic matter.

Biogeocenosis is a homogeneous area of ​​the earth's surface, with a certain composition of living biocenoses and inert (ground layer of the atmosphere) components, united by the exchange of water and energy into a single natural complex.

Anthropobiogeocenosis is a biogeocenosis in which a person is present.

9. The subject of human ecology. The specifics of the human environment.

Man is a biosocial being, the ecological optimum of his existence on the basis of biological mechanisms is limited. Widespread human settlement is achieved by creating artificial environments. Habitat including bio-natural and socio-cultural components.

The human environment consists of 4 inseparable interconnected levels that have arisen as a result of the restructuring of the environment itself to meet human requirements. 1) natural environment; 2) quasi-natural environment (almost natural) - natural landscapes transformed by man and the creation of agrocenoses by him; 3) artenatural (technogenic) - an artificial environment consisting of natural and purely technical elements; 4) the social - cultural and psychological climate is created by the person himself, is made up of the influence of people on others directly and with the help of invented means of material, el-th and inf-th impact.

10. Biological variability of people and the biogeographical character of the environment. Ecological differentiation of people. The concept of ecological types of people and their formation.

Humanity, having settled approx. 15 thousand years ago all areas favorable for life, faced with the need to adapt to a variety of conditions of existence. In different geographical areas, adaptive types of people have formed.

The adaptive type is the norm of a biological reaction to a set of environmental conditions that ensure optimal adaptability to given living conditions. The AT complexes include general elements (these elements increase the overall resistance of the organism), specific ones (closely related to the predominance of conditions in a given habitat). Their combinations are the basis for the isolation of AT (arctic, tropical, alpine, etc.).

11. Anthropogenic ecosystems as a result of industrialization, chemicalization, urbanization, development of transport, spacewalks. Human adaptability to the action of abiotic factors. biological rhythms.

Thanks to the biosocial nature, a person has adapted to the conditions of life physiologically, ecologically, technically, emotionally. The interaction of a person with the environment occurs in 2 directions: 1) connection with biochemical changes in the human body, due to the requirements of the environment. Individual reactions are of a physiological order. 2) specific biological reactions, specific for a given species, determined by a given genotype (may not be characteristic of everyone).

Physiological adaptations - the achievement by the body in new conditions of a stable homostatic state. Shifts occur in the organization in the process of physiological adaptation, affecting all levels of the organization. Tempering and training org-ma increases its functional reserves, but the amplitude of fluctuations cannot be unlimited.

In response to the action of significant in strength and duration of external and internal stimuli, the body responds with protective reactions aimed at restoring the disturbed balance. This process is a general adaptation syndrome.

The habituation of living organisms to new climatic conditions in which they fall as a result of migration is acclimatization. Acclimatization is a complex process that depends on climatic, economic, hygienic, and psychological factors. There are phases: 1) approximate - characterized by general lethargy, decreased blood circulation and performance; 2) high reactivity - stimulation of physiological functions; 3) normalizing - characterized by a high oxygen coefficient, increased endurance and performance; 4) full acclimatization - after prolonged exposure to climatic conditions.

In any phenomenon of nature surrounding us, there is a strict rhythm. Biorhythms are an evolutionary form of adaptation that contributes to the survival of living organisms. This is a temporal sequence of interaction of various functional systems of the body with the environment. Violation of this consistently leads to a breakdown of the regulatory physiological mechanisms of the body, to the occurrence of deviations, a disease state. The precision with which each organism adheres to its own rhythm led to the emergence of the concept of biological clock. Biol clock - the ability of organisms to respond to time intervals, and the phenomena associated with them.

Introduction

In the process of evolution and intense struggle for existence, organisms have mastered the most diverse environmental conditions, and at the same time, the entire modern diversity of plants and animals, which is estimated at about two million species, has been formed. In turn, the vital activity of organisms had a tremendous impact on the inanimate environment, which became more complex and evolved along with the development of life.

The general picture of the nature around us is not a random combination of various living beings, but a fairly stable and organized system in which each type of plant and animal occupies a certain place.

We know that any species is capable of unlimited reproduction and can quickly populate all the space available to it. Obviously, the simultaneous coexistence of diverse living beings is possible only if there are special mechanisms that regulate the course of reproduction and determine the spatial distribution of species and the number of individuals. Such regulation is a consequence of complex competitive and other relationships between organisms in the course of their life activity. In this case, influences from the physical conditions of the environment also play an important role.

The study of the relationship of organisms among themselves and between organisms and the physical environment is the content of the section of biology, called ecology ("oikos" - dwelling, shelter and "logos" - science, Greek).

Ecology relies on the generalizations and conclusions of most other branches of biology, as well as the Earth sciences. Ecological laws serve as a scientific basis for the rational use of natural biological resources by man and for solving many economic problems.

Environment and ecological factors

Organism and environmental factors. The concept of the external environment includes all the conditions of animate and inanimate nature that surround the body and directly or indirectly affect its state, development, survival and reproduction. The environment is always a complex complex of various elements. Individual elements of the environment that act on the body are called environmental factors.

Among them, there are two different groups by their nature:

1. Abiotic factors - all elements of inanimate nature that affect the body. The most important factors include light, temperature, humidity and other components of the climate, as well as the composition of the water, air and soil environment.

2. Biotic factors - all kinds of influences that the organism experiences from the living beings around it. In the modern era, human activity has an exceptionally great influence on nature, which can be considered as a special environmental factor.

In nature, external conditions are always somewhat variable. Each species in the process of evolution has adapted to a certain intensity of environmental factors and the amplitude of their fluctuations. The resulting adaptations to specific living conditions are hereditarily fixed. Therefore, being very appropriate for the environment in which the species historically formed, ecological adaptations limit or even exclude the possibility of existence in a different environment.

Various environmental factors: how, temperature, gas composition of the atmosphere, food, act on the body in various ways. Accordingly, morphological and physiological adaptations to them are different. However, the results of the influence of any factor are ecologically comparable, since they are always expressed in a change in the viability of the organism, which ultimately leads to a change in the population size.

The intensity of the factor, the most favorable for life, is called optimal or optimum. The more the value of the factor deviates from the optimal value for this type of value (both downward and upward), the more vital activity is inhibited. The limits beyond which the existence of an organism is impossible are called the lower and upper limits of endurance.

Since the optimum reflects the characteristics of conditions in habitats, it is usually not the same for different species. In accordance with what level of the factor is most favorable, one can distinguish between types: warm and cold-loving, moisture-loving and dry-loving, adapted to high and low water salinity, etc. Along with this, species adaptations also manifest themselves in endurance to the degree of factor variability. Species that tolerate only small deviations of the factor from the optimal value are called narrowly adapted; widely adapted - species that can withstand significant changes in this factor. For example, most marine inhabitants are narrowly adapted to the relatively high salinity of the water, and a decrease in the concentration of salts in the water is detrimental to them. The inhabitants of fresh waters are also narrowly adapted, but to a low salt content in the water. However, there are species that can tolerate very large changes in water salinity, such as the three-spined stickleback fish, which can live both in fresh waters and in salt lakes and even in the seas.

Adaptations to individual environmental factors are largely independent, so the same species may have a narrow fitness for one of the factors, such as salinity, and a broad fitness for another, such as temperature or food.

Interaction of factors. limiting factor. The body is always simultaneously affected by a very complex set of environmental conditions. The result of their joint influence is not a simple sum of reactions to the action of individual factors. The optimum and limits of endurance in relation to one of the environmental factors depend on the level of others. For example, at the optimum temperature, endurance to adverse humidity and lack of food increases. On the other hand, the abundance of food increases the body's resistance to changes in climatic conditions.

However, such mutual compensation is always limited, and none of the factors necessary for life can be replaced by another. Therefore, when changing habitats or changing conditions in a given area, the vital activity of a species and its ability to compete with others will be limited by that of the factors that deviates most from the optimal value for the species. If the quantitative value of at least one of the factors goes beyond the limits of endurance, then the existence of the species becomes impossible, no matter how favorable the other conditions are.

For example, the distribution of many animals and plants to the north is usually limited by a lack of heat, while in the south, the limiting factor for the same species may be a lack of moisture or necessary food.

Interdependence of organisms and environment. The organism is entirely dependent on the environment and is inconceivable without it. But in the process of vital activity and continuous exchange of substances with the environment, plants and animals themselves influence the surrounding conditions and change the physical environment. The changes that occur in it, in turn, cause organisms to need new ecological adaptations. The scale and significance of such changes in inanimate nature under the influence of the activities of living beings are very large. Suffice it to recall that plant photosynthesis led to the formation of the modern oxygen-rich atmosphere, which has become one of the main conditions of existence for most modern organisms. As a result of the vital activity of organisms, soil arose, to the composition and nature of which plants and animals adapted in the process of evolution. The climate has also changed, and its local features have arisen - microclimates.

The concept of the environment. Environmental factors and their classification

The term "environment" in ecology is used in a broad and narrow sense of the word. In the broad sense of the word, the environment is the environment. The environment is the totality of all living conditions that exist on planet Earth. The American biologist P. Ehrlich in his book "Population Explosion", which was published in the late 60s, figuratively characterized the environment: "Our environment is a one-of-a-kind" skin "of soil, water and a gaseous atmosphere, mineral nutrients and living organisms, covering an otherwise unremarkable planet." Environment in the narrow sense of the word is a habitat. The habitat is that part of nature that surrounds the organism and with which it directly interacts. The habitat of each organism is diverse and variable. It is composed of many elements of animate and inanimate nature and elements introduced by man as a result of his economic activity.

All elements of the environment in relation to the organism are unequal: some of them affect its vital activity, while others are indifferent to it. In this regard, all elements of the environment are grouped as follows.

1. Neutral factors are those elements of the environment that do not affect the body and do not cause any reaction in it.

2. Environmental factors are those elements of the environment that are able to directly or indirectly affect the body at least during one of the phases of its individual development and cause it to have a specific adaptive reaction.

Environmental environmental factors are diverse, they have a different nature and specificity of action. According to their importance for the body, they are divided into two groups:

1. The conditions of existence or the conditions of life are those environmental factors without which the organism cannot exist and with which it is in inseparable unity. The absence of at least one of these factors leads to the death of the organism.

2. Secondary factors are those environmental factors that are not vital, but can modify the existence of an organism, improving or worsening it.

An analysis of the huge variety of environmental factors by the nature of their origin allows us to divide them into three large groups, in each of which, in turn, subgroups can be distinguished:

I. Abiotic factors are non-living factors that directly or indirectly affect the body. They are divided into four subgroups:

a) climatic factors - these are all factors that shape the climate and can affect the life of organisms (light, temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, etc.);

b) edaphic, or soil, factors are the properties of the soil that affect the life of organisms. They, in turn, are divided into physical (mechanical composition, lumpiness, capillarity, duty cycle, air and moisture permeability, air and moisture capacity, density, color, etc.) and chemical (acidity, mineral composition, humus content) soil properties;

c) orographic factors, or relief factors, are the influence of the nature and specifics of the relief on the life of organisms (the height of the terrain above sea level, the latitude of the terrain in relation to the equator, the steepness of the terrain is the angle of inclination of the terrain to the horizon, the exposure of the terrain is the position of the terrain along in relation to the cardinal points);

d) hydrophysical factors - this is the influence of water in all states (liquid, solid, gaseous) and physical environmental factors (noise, vibration, gravity, magnetic, electromagnetic and ionizing radiation) on the life of organisms.

II. Biotic factors are factors of living nature, the influence of living organisms on each other. They are of the most diverse nature and act not only directly, but also indirectly through the surrounding inorganic nature. Depending on the type of influencing organism, they are divided into two groups:

a) intraspecific factors - this is the influence of individuals of the same species on the body (hare to hare, pine to pine, etc.);

b) interspecific factors - this is the influence of individuals of other species on the body (wolf on a hare, pine on a birch, etc.).

Depending on belonging to a particular kingdom, biotic factors are divided into four main groups:

a) phytogenic factors - this is the effect of plants on the body;

b) zoogenic factors - this is the influence of animals on the body;

c) microgenic factors - this is the influence of microorganisms (viruses, bacteria, protozoa, rickettsia) on the body;

d) mycogenic factors - this is the effect of fungi on the body.

III. Anthropogenic factors are a set of human impacts on the life of organisms. Depending on the nature of the impacts, they are divided into two groups:

a) factors of direct influence - this is the direct impact of a person on the body (mowing grass, deforestation, shooting animals, catching fish, etc.);

b) factors of indirect influence - this is the influence of a person by the fact of his existence (every year, in the process of breathing people, 1.1x1012 kg of carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere and 2.7x1015 kcal of energy is withdrawn from the environment in the form of food) and through economic activity (agriculture, industry , transport, household activities, etc.).

Depending on the consequences of the impact, both of these groups of anthropogenic factors, in turn, are further divided into positive factors (planting and feeding plants, breeding and protecting animals, environmental protection, etc.), which improve the life of organisms or increase their numbers, and negative factors (cutting trees, environmental pollution, destruction of habitats, construction of roads and other communications) that impair the life of organisms or reduce their numbers.

The original classification of environmental factors according to the degree of their constancy, i.e. according to their periodicity, suggested A.S. Monchadsky. According to this classification, the following three groups of factors are distinguished.

1. Primary periodic factors are factors that began to act before the appearance of life on Earth and living organisms had to immediately adapt to them (daily periodicity of illumination, seasonal periodicity of the seasons, lunar rhythms, etc.).

2. Secondary periodic factors are factors that are the result of primary periodic factors (humidity, temperature, food dynamics, gas content in water, etc.).

3. Non-periodic factors - these are factors that do not have the correct periodicity or cyclicity (edaphic factors, anthropogenic factors, the content of pollutants in water, atmosphere or soil, etc.).

Depending on the nature of the change over time, environmental factors are also divided into three groups:

1. Regularly periodic factors are factors that change their strength depending on the time of day, the season of the year, or the rhythm of the tides (illuminance, temperature, daylight hours, etc.).

2. Irregular factors are factors that do not have a clearly defined periodicity (climatic factors in different years, factors of catastrophic origin as a result of floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.).

3. Directional factors - these are factors that act over a long period of time in one direction (cooling or warming of the climate, overgrowing of a reservoir, grazing in one place, etc.).

According to the nature of the body's response to the impact of an environmental factor, the following groups of environmental factors are distinguished:

1. Irritants are factors that cause adaptive changes in physiological functions and biochemical reactions.

2. Modifiers are factors that cause adaptive anatomical and morphological changes in the body.

3. Limiters are factors that make it impossible to exist in given conditions and limit the environment for the spread of the organism.

4. Signaling devices are factors that indicate a change in other factors and act as a warning signal.

Depending on the possibility of consumption when interacting with the body, environmental factors are divided into two categories:

1. Conditions are environmental environmental factors that change in time and space, to which the body reacts differently depending on the strength of the factor (temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, physical properties of the soil, etc.). Conditions are not used up and exhausted by the body.

2. Resources are all environmental environmental factors that an organism consumes, consumes in the sense that their quantity (available stock) may decrease as a result of interaction with the organism. Resources are mainly the substances that make up the body of an organism, the energy involved in the processes of its vital activity, as well as the places where certain phases of its life cycle take place.

In addition to the above classifications of environmental factors, other classifications are used in ecology, which are based on various criteria depending on the interests of the researcher.

Ecology as a science. Environment as an ecological concept. environmental factors. The specifics of the human environment. Ecology (Greek oicos - house and logos - science) is literally the science of habitat. As an independent science, ecology was formed around 1900. The term "ecology" was proposed by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1869.

Definition of ecology according to Haeckel Ernst Haeckel gave this science an exhaustive definition: “By ecology we mean the sum of knowledge related to the economy of nature: the study of the totality of the relationship of an animal with its environment, both organic and inorganic, and above all - its friendly or hostile relations with those animals and plants with which it directly or indirectly comes into contact. In a word, ecology is the study of all the complex relationships that Darwin called the conditions that give rise to the struggle for existence. "

Environment as an ecological concept Environment is a part of nature that surrounds living organisms and has a direct or indirect effect on them. From the environment, organisms receive everything necessary for life and excrete metabolic products into it. The environment of each organism is composed of many elements of inorganic and organic nature and elements introduced by man and his production activities. At the same time, some elements may be partially or completely indifferent to the body, others are necessary, and still others have a negative effect.

conditions of existence. Ecological factors Conditions of life, or conditions of existence, are a set of elements of the environment necessary for the organism, with which it is in inseparable unity and without which it cannot exist. Separate properties or elements of the environment that affect organisms are called environmental factors An environmental factor is any environmental condition that can have a direct or indirect effect on living organisms

Environmental factors are divided into three categories: 1. Abiotic - factors of inanimate nature (Light, ionizing radiation, humidity of atmospheric air, precipitation, gas composition of the atmosphere, temperature) 2. Biotic - factors of wildlife (The action of biotic factors is expressed in the form of mutual influences of some organisms on the vital activity of other organisms and all together on the environment) 3. Anthropogenic - factors of human activity (Man, on the one hand, is the object of environmental factors, on the other hand, he himself has an impact on the environment. Thus, man is the object of application of environmental factors, and also acts as an independent environmental factor)

The specificity of the human environment The human environment is an interweaving of interacting natural and anthropogenic environmental factors, the set of which varies in different natural-geographical and economic regions of the planet. Man is the only species on Earth that has spread to all parts of its land and has therefore become an ecological factor with global influence. The human habitat includes natural and artificial environment (bio-natural and socio-cultural components). Nevertheless, both in the natural and in the artificial environment, a person is presented as a social being. The main line of development of human ecology is currently aimed at solving the problems of environmental management, developing ways of rational nature management, optimizing the living conditions of people in various anthropoecological systems.

Environment and ecological environmental factors

LECTURE 2

The environment is a set of living and non-living objects, interrelated conditions and influences present in some environment of a living organism, and, in particular, a person.

The environment is divided into the following types:

a) the natural or natural environment, is a series of conditions or factors (sun, soil, water, air, flora and fauna);

b) artificial environment - created by man, the products of his labor (houses, parks, enterprises, highways, various mechanisms and machines);

c) the social environment is a team, family, friends, etc.

The human body and any animal or plant develops as a result of a constant exchange of matter and energy with the environment. The environment affects living organisms. And organisms also affect the environment, changing it. This function of living organisms is called environment-forming.

Example: 1) trees shed their leaves, leaves (biomass) - energy

2) the earthworm sucks nutrients out of the soil, loosens the soil.

Living organisms need an influx of matter and energy and are completely dependent on the environment.

Elements of the environment affect living organisms through environmental factors.

Environmental factors- these are certain conditions and elements of the environment that affect living organisms, to which the latter respond with adaptive reactions - adaptations.

Environmental factors divided into conditions and resources.

Conditions are factors necessary for life and which do not depend on their consumption (solar activity, water salinity, temperature, pressure).

(Chizhevsky said: "Flashes in the sun are to blame for everything.")

Resources - what an organism can consume and thereby make them inaccessible to other organisms; - everything from which the body draws energy and receives substances for its life activity (oil, coal, etc.). Resources, unlike conditions, can be spent and exhausted.

One and the same factor can be considered both as a condition and as a resource.

(Influence for terrestrial living organisms - oxygen - an energy resource for aquatic (hydrobionts) - oxygen content - a condition of life). The most important resources are food, in relation to which organisms experience competition.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS are divided into:

abiotic biotic anthropogenic

Recently, informational factors have been singled out.

Abiotic factors inanimate nature a) climatic b) local (relief, salinity, radiation level) directly or indirectly affect living organisms, determining their vital activity. They are divided into chemical and physical. The chemical ones include: the gas composition of the atmosphere, the salinity of the water, the mineral composition of the soil; physical - temperature, humidity, pressure, radiation level, etc.

Example A: cosmic factors: the activity of the sun is the most important factor, has a cyclical nature. For the first time Russian scientist Chizhevsky A.L. in 1915, he established a connection between solar activity and life processes (a surge in the birth rate, climatic changes, the outbreak of wars). Solar activity affects the development of oncological and infectious diseases.

Air humidity is the most important environmental indicator. In dry and hot summers, insects develop more actively than in humid and cool ones. If this is repeated for several years, then there are outbreaks of insects that cause damage to agriculture.

BIOTIC FACTORS- a set of influences of some organisms on others, as well as on the environment. Interactions between living organisms consist of intra- and interspecific relationships.

intraspecific relationships between individuals of the same species. These relationships are reflected in the competition for food, for habitat, for a partner. Intraspecific relationships determine the size of the population, which are regulated by natural selection.

Interspecies relationships more diverse, among them are the following:

- neutralism Both types are independent and have no effect on each other. No competition, but one habitat (squirrel and elk in the same forest, monkeys and elephants);

-competition- each of the species has an adverse effect on the other;

- mutualism (symbiosis) - mutually beneficial existence, species cannot exist without each other (nitrogen-fixing bacteria and legumes; ungulates and bacteria that live in their rumen, which break down fiber);

- commonwealth- both species form a community, but can exist separately, although the community benefits both of them;

- compensatoryism- one species, compensated, benefits from cohabitation, and the other species - the owner does not have any benefit (in the oceans and seas in each shell - organisms that receive shelter here, but are absolutely harmless to the owner of this shell);

- predation- the predator feeds on the prey;

- amensalism- at the same time, the growth of one species (amensala) is inhibited by the excretion product of another (blue-green algae, causing water blooms, thereby poisoning aquatic fauna, and sometimes even livestock that comes to drink).

These relationships form the basis for the existence of biocenoses.

Sometimes animals that eat plants or other animals are seen as natural enemies, but so-called "enemies" are just natural selection environmental factors. If a species has no enemies, it is doomed to extinction.

ANTHROPOGENIC FACTORS- the result of human activity and its impact on the environment. Anthropogenic factors include the impact of industry, transport, construction, etc. Often the anthropogenic factor has a negative character, which consists in environmental pollution, destruction of the natural environment, depletion of natural resources. V.I. Vernadsky compared the influence of the anthropogenic factor in terms of strength with the effect of geological processes on Earth.

INFORMATION FACTOR- the transfer of hereditary information, as well as information that comes to a living organism with food, water, and also from the media for a person. The excess and lack of any information has an irritating effect not on the body (a solitary cell, without access to information - torture).