Ecosystems
Ecosystem is really a biological environment consisting of all the organisms residing in a specific area, as well as all of the nonliving, physical aspects of environmental surroundings with that the organisms interact, for example air, soil, water, and sunlight. It's all the organisms in a given area, combined with the nonliving (abiotic) factors with that they interact; a biological community and its physical environment.
Scientists who study entire ecosystems are generally called systems ecologists.
[edit] Overview
The whole array of organisms inhabiting a particular ecosystem is called a community. In a typical ecosystem, plants along with other photosynthetic organisms would be the producers that provide the food. Ecosystems can be permanent or temporary. Ecosystems usually form numerous food webs.
Ecosystems are functional units consisting of living things in a given area, non-living chemical and physical factors of their environment, linked together through nutrient cycle and energy flow.
Central to the ecosystem concept may be the indisputable fact that living organisms interact with almost every other aspect in their local environment. Eugene Odum, a founder of ecology, stated: "Any unit that includes all the organisms (ie: the "community") inside a given area getting together with the physical environment so that a flow of one's results in clearly defined trophic structure, biotic diversity, and material cycles (i.e.: exchange of materials between living and nonliving parts) inside the system is an ecosystem.
- An ecosystem is a living community of plant and animals sharing an environment with non-living elements such as climate and soil.
- Ecosystems exist on a variety of scales. An example of a small scale ecosystem (micro) is a pond. A medium scale ecosystem (messo) could be a forest. The tropical rainforest is an example of a very large ecosystem (biome).
- Sunlight is the main source of energy. This allows the plant to convert the energy by photosynthesis. This allows the plants to provide food for some animals, birds and fish. These are called Herbivores. The other animals eat the animals that have eaten the plants. These are Carnivores. This process is called the FOOD CHAIN.
- The World has many different ecosystems. Each one has its own climate, soil, plants and animals. Very few ecosystems are natural today because of human activities. More ecosystems are under threat than ever before and need protecting.
[edit] Effects of human activity on ecosystem
Today humans have affected ecosystems in almost every way imaginable. Humans have altered the ecosystem drastically mainly because of land clearing, deforestation and other methods of exploiting the natural resources. These actions has disrupted the food chain, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and the water cycle.
