How to intelligently answer the questions: 'what are butterflies and moths for?' and 'what is the point of their existence?'
How butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) fit into the ecological hierarchy and food webs using real-life examples
How their symbiotic and predator-prey relationships help us to interpret their behaviour
Some basic information on ecological concepts like plant succession, biomes and the biosphere
This is too huge a subject to be covered adequately on a short course like this, but it will help you to gain the understanding needed to to study it further.
Course Content
Butterfly and Moth ecology
This course will equip you to answer the question: ‘Butterflies are pretty, but what are they for? Where do they fit in?'. The answer lies in their ecology. Ecology is the study of the relationships between living things and their habitats, and how they organize themselves into an ecosystem.
Ecological hierarchies – food chains, food webs, and the trophic pyramid
14:21
Hierarchies and trophic levels
Butterfly ecological relationships
Ecologists study the ways that organisms interact within the food web and trophic pyramid. So far, we’ve looked at the predator-prey relationships between species (or organisms) in a food chain or web.
There are also symbiotic relationships, in which two different species living together in prolonged close association interact in various ways besides predation or prey.
Relationships between living organisms and how they relate to behaviour
08:56
Butterfly and moth ecological relationships
Butterfly and moth ecology on a wider scale
So far, we’ve discussed butterflies' place in localized ecosystems. A small garden or relationships between individual organisms. Ecology extends beyond this scope, encompassing the study of relationships on a global basis.
