Topic 10 - ECOLOGY

Assalamualaikum and hi everybody! We meet again for this entry. Today I am going to an entry on topic 10 which is Ecology. 

For this topic, Dr Wan will be taking over the class after not seeing us for a month I guess. I missed Dr Wan so much and it feels so good to have Dr Wan to teach us back even for just this one topic. I love both though, Dr Wan and Dr Fairol, I'm not bias haha. But I just feel happy because I can hear Dr Wan's laugh again in her class. So for this topic Ecology. It is not a new topic for me. I have lerned about this topic before in secondary school and also during my foundation year in UiTM. 

Global ecology

I am quite fond of this topic because I think this is the easiest topic among all. But I noticed some difference when learning Ecology this time as I have to relate to microbial world. As far as I know ecology is the study of interaction between living things, non living things and the environment as a whole. But in this Microbiology course, we have to narrow our subject into microbe's world.

In this topic I learned about interaction between organism. We have two interaction which positive interaction and negative interaction. One new term for is "amensalism/antagonistic". This amensalism interaction is one symbiont will get the negative effect while the other symbiont will get benefit or unaffected. Other interactions I have heard before such as; commensalism, mutualism, predation, competition, parasitism and cooperation. Microbes play an important role in global ecology. For instance;

• Global Geochemical Cycles
• Carbon
• Nitrogen
• Iron,
• Sulfur
• El Niño - what role do microbes play in El Niño?
• Global Warming - The average temperature of the Earth has been steadily increasing over the past one hundred years. What role do microbes play in this global warming trend?
• Gaia - the Earth's biosystem is known to some as Gaia. Because microbes are responsible for most of the cycling of elements, they are the foundation of this system.

By studying Ecology topic, I learned more about our environment and the contribution of microorganism for the sustainable of environment. 

ECOLOGY