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Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million in total. Animals range in size from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs .
Consumer–resource interactions are the core motif of ecological food chains or food webs, [1] and are an umbrella term for a variety of more specialized types of biological species interactions including prey-predator (see predation), host-parasite (see parasitism), plant-herbivore and victim-exploiter systems. These kinds of interactions ...
Mutualism is an interaction between two or more species, where species derive a mutual benefit, for example an increased carrying capacity. Similar interactions within a species are known as co-operation. Mutualism may be classified in terms of the closeness of association, the closest being symbiosis, which is often confused with mutualism.
Nestedness: the degree to which species with few links have a sub-set of the links of other species, rather than a different set of links. In highly nested networks, guilds of species that share an ecological niche contain both generalists (species with many links) and specialists (species with few links, all shared with the generalists). [13]
It's possible for the hydrosphere to be highly distributed throughout other component spheres such as the geosphere and atmosphere. There are about 1.4 billion km of water on Earth. That includes liquid water in the ocean, lakes, and rivers. It includes frozen water in snow, ice, and glaciers, and water that's underground in soils and rocks.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to zoology: . Zoology – study of animals.Zoology, or "animal biology", is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the identification, structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems.
The sign of an interaction does not capture the impact on fitness of that interaction. One example of this is of antagonism, in which predators may have a much stronger impact on their prey species (death), than parasites (reduction in fitness). Similarly, positive interactions can produce anything from a negligible change in fitness to a life ...
Another example of a multitrophic interaction is a trophic cascade, in which predators help to increase plant growth and prevent overgrazing by suppressing herbivores. Links in a food-web illustrate direct trophic relations among species, but there are also indirect effects that can alter the abundance, distribution, or biomass in the trophic ...