Ecology: a lot closer than I thought.

Tell me, reader, what image comes to mind when you think of ecology? The tropical rainforests? The African savanna? A map of the world split into a dozen different biomes? What about a high school? In this ecology field exercise, our biology teacher sent us on a scavenger hunt to find and photograph organisms that would fall into certain ecological categories-- but we could only look on campus. Here's what I got:

Producer

Bamboo

Bambusae

A producer makes its own food using inorganic molecules and sunlight. The producer I found was bamboo; though I was able to safely identify several species of bamboo my specimen wasn't, I was unable to pin down which of the approximately 1,450 species it actually was. This bamboo shared its habitat with a smattering of weeds.

Primary Consumer

Western grey squirrel

Sciurus griseus

Primary consumers are so called because they eat producers, making them the first feeding tier that consumes its nutrients instead of producing them: thus, primary consumers. This Western grey squirrel, which I found on the quad scurrying up a tree of unidentified species, eats almost exclusively plant matter (though it has been known to consume insects) making it a primary consumer.

Secondary Consumer

House Sparrow

Passer Domesticus

A secondary consumer eats primary consumers for nutrition. These house sparrows, which I found on the quad, eat mostly nuts and seeds, but eat primary-consumer insects and such as well, qualifying them as secondary consumers in addition to primary consumers.

Secondary and Tertiary Consumer

Domestic Cat

Felis silvestris catus

The tertiary consumer is that which eats secondary consumers. Though it has been known to (accidentally) consume primary-consumer bees, its primary diet consists of primary/secondary consumer small prey such as birds and rodents, making it both a secondary and tertiary consumer. Stray cats sometimes hang around campus in the parking area between Sobrato and the soccer field.

Decomposer

Mushroom

Pleurotus?

There's a lot of music in this world... the music-sphere is constantly evolving to match the taste of the listener. Unfortunately, this means a lot of music is left outdated and unlistenable, and would pollute the music-sphere for decades (until it comes back into fashion, of course) without these guys around. Whereas composers compose new music from raw notes, decomposers de-compose it back into those same notes for re-use. They may not get much credit for their work, but where would Mozart or Beethoven be with a thousand monotone pre-Gregorian chants floating around leaving their beige stain of boorishness on every opera and sonata anyone tried to put on paper? That's why the world needs these organisms-- to de-compose the massive musical residue from generations past in order to make way for new styles and songs.
Besides this vital occupation, decomposers also preform a similar function when it comes to organic waste, decomposing it into raw nutrients for producers to use. As with the bamboo, I was unable to exactly identify the species of the specimen, though I believe it was most likely in the genus Pleurotus. This makes it most likely to be a decomposer of tree roots, which fits perfectly with the habitat in which it was found-- at the base of the root of a tree.

Herbivore

Garden Snail

Cornu Aspersum

Herbivores, like this garden snail, eat exclusively plants. I found this snail wedged in a niche in a wall, probably for protection from predators. Unfortunately this meant that I was not able to capture all of its anatomical features, and the picture only shows the shell and a bit of the body sticking out the front.

Carnivore

Northern Alligator Lizard

Elgaria coeruela

The carnivore is the consumer who eats exclusively other consumers; in other words, the animal that eats only meat. This Northern Alligator Lizard's diet is made up of mostly insects; it has also been known to eat its own young, and possibly bird eggs. Thank you Arya Adibi for this splendid picture.

Omnivore

American Crow

Corvus brachyrhynchos

Omnivores eat anything: producers, consumers, we're all over the spectrum-- and I say "we", because most people fall into this category too. Nonetheless, I decided to eschew the selfie route and was able to snap this picture of the American crow in flight. I first spotted my specimen caw-cawing on the roof of Liccardo, and captured numerous frames of it doing just that before it took off and I was able to get this.

Threatened Species

Western honey bee

Apis mellifera

It is exceptionally difficult to capture a decent photo of the honeybee. Of all the different creatures I photographed for this field exercise, no picture took more grit than the one directly above. And they're not hard at all to find. For the many minutes I spent combing over spiderwebs in hopes of a live specimen, I wouldn't have traded all of it for thirty seconds with these guys.
The western, or European, honeybee is a threatened species, with insecticides, global warming, and and the varroa mite all slashing at the species' numbers every day. I found this bee foraging for food among the plants on the wall separating the parking lot under the bridge and the soccer field, sharing its habitat with bumblebees, wasps, and other small insects.

Endangered Species

Redwood Tree

Sequoioideae

There's probably some other endangered species on campus. But none sticks out quite like the redwood.We have one on campus, right across from Carney, where it shares its habitat with grass and flowers. For a third time, I'm not sure of the exact species of the tree, but given that the entire subfamily is endangered, one's as good for this purpose as the next. Thank you Mr. Talesfore for pointing this tree out to me.

Non-native species

Bamboo

Bambusae

Given the great circle of life and the cycling of matter throughout the biosphere, it seems fitting to end with where I started: bamboo. I'm still not sure of the exact species. It's still sharing its habitat with a smattering of weeds. And I still have to identify a source of pollution and answer some discussion questions before I'm done, so don't worry, there's still plenty of blog to go before the end.

Pollution Source

Car

Raeda

Pollution is everywhere at Bellarmine, but by far the most egregious offender are the cars that drive through and past the campus every day. Not only do they pollute the air, but they're also a source of noise pollution and light pollution during the night.

Now for something entirely different: answers to discussion questions!

1) Environmental science is simply the study of the environment of objects-- when applying this to nature, this results in the study of the actual biotic and abiotic factors that influence an organism. Ecology, according to our textbook, is the study of how organisms interact with one another and their environment. The two fields have significant overlap, and one can't really exist without the other. The ecology of Bellarmine would look at all the different organisms, the habitat and their interactions in general, while the environmental science would focus on how factors affect organisms rather than the other way around.

2) I saw plenty of different populations on campus: the bees being the most obvious example coming to mind, followed by the house sparrows and crows. The snails, cats, and bamboo also had their own populations. Communities I noticed were the communities around some flowers consisting of the plants themselves, the bees, numerous other insects and a little bit of grass growing on the ground. The quad is really one big community, with its trees, grass, insects and numerous birds, as well as a few mushrooms. Close to the quad, yet separated by the stationary boundary of a few feet of concrete, is a separate little community of the bamboo and some weeds. Ecosystems combine the concept of community with abiotic factors; the garage I found the cats in would qualify, as would the quad plus all the buildings and concrete sidewalks, the bamboo patch and the concrete that surrounds it. As for biomes... that's a bit of a tricky one. Bellarmine has a dazzling array of non-native plants, and the buildings and such make it closer to a city than any naturally occurring biome. However, since the area's mostly grass with relatively few trees and it's in a temperate climate, it would make the most sense to classify it as some sort of artificial prarie. And as for aquatic biomes, I could find none.

3) A food chain on campus would begin with a producer, such as the bamboo. However, nothing seems to actually eat the bamboo here on campus, so for the purpose of the exercise I'll assume a different producer, such as grass. Primary-consumer insects might eat the grass, and in turn be eaten by the secondary-consumer house sparrows, which may be then consumed by the tertiary-consumer domestic cats. This will all be decomposed by decomposers (while they're taking a break from de-composing 20's show tunes), most likely bacteria. Simply put,

Grass -> insects -> house sparrows -> cat -> bacteria

A food web would be similar, but with an added dimension of multiple organism on each trophic level, a well as organisms straddling trophic levels.

Most of the interactions I found seemed to center around unobserved insects that are eaten by most of the other animals. I included the varroa mites just for fun, and took the liberty of just placing the decomposers in a corner with a bunch of arrows leading to it instead of drawing an arrow for each organism.
Finally, the I also drew an ecological pyramid to represent the different trophic levels. Given that most of my primary and secondary consumers were actually both, I merged it into one category-- ending up with producers on the bottom, bottom-level consumers in the middle, and upper-level consumers on top.

4) I didn't see many threatened, endangered, or invasive species on campus-- of course most of the plants were to be non-native, but they seemed perfectly under control. The only invasive species I found was also the only threatened species I found-- the western honey bee. Likewise, the single endangered species I could locate on campus was the redwood tree.

5) Pollution is defined as the presence or introduction to the environment of harmful factors. This generally is used to mean chemicals or other materials, but can also include factors such as noise and light pollution. I found air pollution everywhere at Bellarmine, but especially from the many automobiles passing through or by campus every minute of every day... All over the quad, lamp posts were a potential source of light pollution. Noise pollution was also abundant, mostly from the aforementioned cars but also coming out of the music room. Finally, I saw a notable amount of wrappers and such, much to my dismay.