Ecology is the study of how animals interact with each other and how they interact with their environment. For example baby red fox's play with each other by biting their ears or scratching them. Gray fox's interact with their environment by climbing trees and sleeping in them.                                                        
An Ecosystem is a biological community of interacting organisms and their environment. For example a group of fox's interact with each other by playing together and hunting together.

Limiting Factor: Say there is a pack of wolves that are living in an area with deer.  If there is only enough space for ten wolves maximum and if there already are ten wolves then the limiting factor is the space. But if the deer were being killed by a disease then there wouldn't be a lot of food for the wolves, so the limiting factors is the food shortage.

The niche that a wolf might have is a carnivorous one because they are carnivores and they eat rabbits and they depend on rabbits for survival but they depend on other animals to so if the deer were all to die or get eaten and if all the other kinds of animals that the wolfs eat leave then the wolfs would die of no food. Wolves could also die of natural things to like old age or accidents or even storms and other kinds of things.

Symbiotic Relationships

Mutualism: Mutualism is when both animals that work together benefit from helping each other. For example a clown fish depends on a sea anemone for their survival because sea anemones have stingers that sting other fish but don't sting clown fish because they have a protection coating that keeps it from getting stung and the clown fish's help the sea anemones by cleaning up the sea anemone after it stings other fish.

Commensulism: Commensulism is when one animal benefits and nothing happens to the other one. For example when cows walk around eating grass they have little birds sitting on them waiting for the bugs and insects in the grass to fly out because when cows walk they shake the grass and they shake off bugs and insects.

Parasitism: Parasitism is when one animal benefits and the other gets harmed. For example roundworms can benefit from killing or hurting other animals like puppies or horses and other animals.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
                                           
Having all kinds of animals in an area is very important because all those animal's can do certain types of things. Some animals might be carnivores so they would hunt other animals but that's only for their survival. Some animals might be herbivores so they wont eat other animals instead they will eat grass but they could be eaten by other animals. Some animals might be omnivores so they would be both meat eaters and grass eaters and they would eat meat and grass. Without all kinds of different animals in an area it would be boring just seeing one type when you could see many more.



Gray Tree Frog    Foodweb    Habitat Loss