ECOLOGICAL BIOCHEMISTRY - Study Guide - V. M. Isaienko 2005

INTRODUCTION

To preserve The Diversity of living organisms, which is a prerequisite for the existence of the biosphere, understanding the interactions among its components is of paramount importance. Comprehensive research of ecosystems at various levels requires the integration of ecology with both biological and non-biological sciences. Modern scientific findings obtained through Biochemical Methods, alongside ecological studies, have formed The basis of a new scientific discipline: ecological biochemistry.

Structure/19.html">The Importance of integrating biological and chemical approaches to analyze biosphere phenomena was highlighted in V. I. Vernadsky's DOCTRINE OF THE biosphere. In ecology, which studies the interactions of living organisms with each other and with their environment, elucidating the mechanisms that maintain relative equilibrium and stability in ecosystems is essential. In this regard, biochemistry—as the science of The chemical composition, properties, METABOLISM, and energy transformation in living organisms—makes it possible to define the biochemical interactions of living organisms within ecosystems. These interactions are fundamentally based on the fact that chemical compounds, metabolic products, and biochemical processes play a vital role in the complex regulation of interactions among organisms.

ECOLOGICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL interactions, along with the substances and processes involved in them, play an extremely important role in shaping numerous specific trophic chains within ecosystems. It is crucial to study The regulation of trophic relationships by chemical substances, most of which have evolved over time. Various mediator substances participate not only in trophic interactions within different ecological communities, but also in non-trophic ones (chemomediator, chemoeffector, etc.).

Main Functions of ecomediators, ecoregulators, and ecoeffectors:

1. Defense against consumers: suppressing their feeding and reproductive activity, repelling, and deterring them. This is how numerous plant toxins or repellents, antifeedants, chemosterilants, and invertebrate excretions act, among others. The impact of such substances is directed upward through trophic chains.

2. Offense against organisms that serve as food sources. Examples include the toxins and exoenzymes of Fungi and pathogenic Bacteria, as well as the toxins of predatory animals. The action of such substances is typically directed toward organisms at a lower trophic level.

3. Suppression of competitors at the same trophic level. These substances include allelopathic agents in plants, animal pheromones, and Antibiotics in fungi and prokaryotes.

4. Attraction. Signals acting as a final factor triggered by various attractants of fungi, plants, and animals, as well as sex pheromones, kairomones, etc.

5. Regulation of interactions within a population, group of individuals, or family, mediated by diverse pheromones and other chemoregulators. This function is of exceptional importance in social insects.

6. Providing organisms with precursor substances used to synthesize essential Hormones, Enzymes, or ready-made functional compounds. These include pheromone precursors in moths, hormone precursors in Drosophila, and pheromones in Arthropods.

7. Formation of the habitat. Examples include antioxidants and hydrogen peroxide in aquatic ecosystems, as well as various substances in the soil.

8. Indication of habitat sites for settlement or reproduction, and spatial orientation during habitat relocation. Examples include substances that stimulate the settlement of hydrobiont larvae on a substrate, the search for aquatic environments or coastlines (in fish, marine arthropods, turtles), and spatial orientation in terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates.

The Abundance of chemical ecomodulators and the critical importance of the functions they perform highlight the significant hazard of chemical pollution in the biosphere—specifically, the threat of disrupting interorganismal connections within ecosystems. Therefore, one of the key tasks of ecological biochemistry is to study the impact of xenobiotics and their biotransformation products on Organism interactions in ecosystems.

The Study of ecological and biochemical interactions among organisms in ecosystems, along with The Use of chemical ecoregulators, ecomediators, and ecoeffectors, is of substantial importance not only for ecology as a whole, but also for agriculture in particular. This primarily concerns the protection of agricultural crops.

Thus, biological chemoregulators play a major role in the mechanisms that maintain ecological equilibrium in the biosphere. At the same time, various xenobiotics polluting the biosphere can disrupt ecological processes and thereby destabilize ecological balance. In this context, ecological biochemistry can be defined as a science (a branch of biology) that studies the features of biochemical stabilization and destabilization of ecological equilibrium in the biosphere. Its subject matter encompasses the study of chemical-mediated interactions between organisms in ecosystems, primarily focusing on the regulators of ecological processes. These chemical substances also include anthropogenic environmental pollutants. Furthermore, ecological biochemistry investigates the Biochemical Mechanisms of organism ADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL conditions, the Transformation of substances capable of affecting ecological balance, and the pathways of xenobiotic biotransformation.

The primary Objects of Study in ecological biochemistry are organisms that biochemically interact with one another, populations, communities, as well as specific substances that influence ecological interorganismal interactions. These substances are integral components of ecosystems and participate in ongoing ecological processes within the biosphere.