An ecosystem is a community of plants, animals and smaller organisms that live, feed, reproduce and interact in the same area or environment. Each individual plant and animal could not exist by itself on planet Earth. All living organisms need millions of other living organisms to survive. How these organisms interact with the sun, soil, water, air and each other in a specific are is called an ecosystem. In the following paragraphs I will be organization that make up an ecosystem and their organizations.
There are two major kinds of ecosystems Aquatic and Terrestrial. An Aquatic ecosystem is in a body of water, where animals, plants and their physical environment interact in water. The two main parts of aquatic ecosystems are Marine Ecosystems and Fresh Water ecosystems. The Marine ecosystem covers approximately about 71% of the earth surface and they can be divided into different zones and categories. The zone of the Marine ecosystem is divided depending upon the water depth and shoreline features. The Oceanic zone is the open part of the ocean where animals like sharks and whales live. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tides and includes coral reefs, lagoons and salt marshes. The benthic zone in where many invertebrates live. There are also thousands of plant species that live in the ocean like algae, seaweeds, sea grasses and mangroves. (Mann KH 2006)
Aquatic ecosystem is also categorized as Fresh water ecosystem. These include ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers, streams and wetlands. Ponds and lakes are often called lentic ecosystems. This means that they have still or standing waters, not moving like rivers or streams. Lakes are often divided up into four zones of biotic communities: Littoral zone - Lim...
... middle of paper ...
...ing.
• Living things are composed of cells that have a complex, organized structure.
• Living things maintain their complex structures and their internal environment called homeostasis.
• Living things respond to stimuli from their environment.
• Living things have a capacity to evolve.
• Living things acquire energy from their environment and convert it in different forms.
• Living things grow.
• Living things reproduce.
If something follows one or just a few of the rules listed above, it does not necessarily mean that it is living. To be considered alive, an object must exhibit all of the characteristics of living things. For example a virus can be seen as a living thing because it has the capacity to make someone very ill, but in reality viruses are not living things. Viruses don’t reproduce have no energy and they don’t respond to stimuli. (Audesirk T. 2011)
Ecosystems are communities of living organisms, interacting as a system, in conjunction with non-living organisms. There are essentially two types of ecosystems: aquatic and terrestrial. Aquatic ecosystems are ecosystems situated in a body of water that include water qualities and aquatic fauna and flora. Aquatic ecosystems are classified into Marine and Freshwater. Terrestrial ecosystems are essentially ecosystems that are not found in a body of water or heavily saturated places. These ecosystems are further
Human beings are naturally societal and relational. Even before the Neolithic revolution, humans roved around in groups, hence hunters and gatherers societies, not hunter or gatherer (singular). People stayed tougher not only for collective security, prosperity and necessity, but mainly for the benefit of the self. Whether for protection, emotional need or monetary gain, individuals, as a result, banded together in order to satisfy those needs first. If humans were always societal, in one form or the other (by societal, I mean always in conjunction with other humans: families, tribes, kingdoms, etc.), then the idea of a pure state of nature does not exist. A state of nature implies a time when people did not have societies but if humans always had societies, then what the history of man is simply a history of the ranging developments of different forms of societies over time. What political philosophers identified as “state of nature” are simply, observations or conjectures of human rationality, characteristics and the human condition. A “state of nature” has to exist only in order to justify the institutional arrangements of a group of people, whether it is real or not.
Ecosystems are the basic biological units of ecology, and consist of biotic organisms and their interactions amongst other living organisms, as well as the surrounding abiotic environment (Putman and Wratten 1984). One facet of ecosystems that is less-often mentioned is the process of decomposition, as it many may view it as an unclean, unpleasant process that occurs after an organism has ceased to exist. To those with an ecological framework, however, decomposition is viewed as the opposite – an interesting, intricate process teeming with biological activity and life (Swan and Kominoski 2012). What is decomposition? Formally, decomposition is defined as the process to which complex organic matter is broken down to its basic constituents (i.e.
way. Just as there is a variety of animals there is a variety of ecosystems and each ecosystem is
The earth is divided climatically and geographically into specific areas where there are similarities in communities of vegetation, organisms and animals. These ecosystems are often referred to as biomes. Differences in biomes usually consists of identifiable plant structures where there is a specific pattern of ecological activity. Biomes are also major types of habitats for different types of organisms and animals.
Discerning the spatial patterns of biodiversity and understanding their ultimate (why) and proximate (how) causes is very dear to biogeography and is one of the key concepts of Macro ecology. Some places on earth contain more species as compared to others. All species occurring at a given space and time either originated (speciated) there or dispersed and arrived from another place and settled there. Biogeographers try to understand the past and current distributions of species by incorporating historical, evolutionary and ecological factors. Earlier biogeographers or the ‘naturalists’ in their sacred quest to serve ‘the creator’, travelled to various parts of the world and imparted valuable knowledge about the diverse patterns and processes of nature. Linnaeus (1743), on the one hand, hypothesized that early Earth was filled with water except for it’s highest mountain top i.e., Mount Ararat which was known to be the site of paradise and as the sea level dropped the exposed land was colonized by plants and animals that migrated down from high elevational zones of Mount Ararat whereas Willdenow (1805) hypothesized that within each geographical region of the earth, plants and animals were first placed and later survived the great flood on many mountain ranges (Lomolino,2001). Von Humboldt and Darwin in the South American Andes and Wallace Southeast Asian islands noticed the decreasing trend in elevational species richness patterns (McCain and Grytnes, 2010). Later work done by Grinnell (1917), Whittaker (1952), Terborgh (1977, 1985) on elevational species richness became accepted and set a established pattern for all species for more than two decades (McCain and Grytnes, 2010). However current researches on elevational gradients are...
Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to investigate the various components of different ecosystems in a smaller representation and study the conditions required for the ecosystem’s sustainability as well as the connections between
There are many types of ecosystems”Some are them are immense biomes and other can be minor ecosystems like a puddle or a tree trunk”, but wouldn't it be amazing too have a ecosystem the size of a pop bottle. Luckily this is not a hallucination Ecosystems like these are called ecocolumn which are basically a simulation of a medium ecosystem synce it contains a small aquarium on the bottom and a terrarium in the top. By doing these we are going to be able to see the relationships between the consumers, producers and decomposers, In these case the decomposer can be the earthworm the consumers can be the fish and the producers can be the plants these organism are characterized in these category because of their symbiotic relationship. In a Ecocolumn
“Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that if he won the battle he would find himself on the losing side” (E.F. Schumacher, 1974).
...enthic, coral reef, and estuaries. Some freshwater habitats include marches, lakes, rivers, ponds, wetlands, and bogs.
nuclei was then inactivated and substituted with dead nuclei from the extinct frog. Some eggs started to grow and divide to early embryo stage (a tiny ball of m...
Scientists have begun to say that we have to do more to protect our ecosystem, because our very existence is depending upon it. When the ecosystem is not functioning properly the continuation of plant, animal and human life ecosystems would be impossible. Life cycles can not function without ecosystems. The ecosystem provides us with clean air, water, habitats for fish and other services. They also aid in the mod...
Today talking about environmental issues lately to be like a common topic discussion until people take it for granted. However, the world facing a complex environmental problems related to each trouble that connected to one another and come out with greater impacts to the environment and humans. This is because the effects of environmental only can be seen in long term period rather than immediately result show up. Environmental issues must become one of the controversial matters in the society in order to make people know the truth what the world currently facing. There were a lot of environmental disaster happened such as climate change, global warming, various of pollutions, earthquake and etc. the rise of environmental issues begin with this urban development occur through several countries following with the technologies equip along. For sure, development will cause a huge negative impact to the environment if it deals without a care. Besides, the environment is the place in the ecosystem to hold and use in finding resources to continuously survive in this world. Thus, the finding and digging for the resources which happening extensively without preservation will not restore the surrounding similar with before. But then, the change cannot be refuse and people need to take an action to save the threaten the world and the ecosystem from being extinct. If each country has own output in causing an environmental problem, then consider the world to hold all the damage occurred. Exposing the effects of environmental issues throughout the world, make people realize the important to take care the environment.
The branch of science that deals with how living things, including humans, are related to their surroundings is called ecology . The Earth supports some 5 million species of plants, animals, and microorganisms. These interact and influence their surroundings, forming a vast network of interrelated environmental systems called ecosystems. The arctic tundra is an ecosystem and so is a Brazilian rain forest. The islands of Hawaii are a relatively isolated ecosystem. If left undisturbed, natural environmental systems tend to achieve balance or stability among the various species of plants and animals. Complex ecosystems are able to compensate for changes caused by weather or intrusions from migrating animals and are therefore usually said to be more stable than simple ecosystems. A field of corn has only one dominant species, the corn plant, and is a very simple ecosystem. It is easily destroyed by drought, insects, disease, or overuse. A forest may remain relatively unchanged by weather that would destroy a nearby field of corn, because the forest is characterized by greater diversity of plants and animals. Its complexity gives it stability.
There are lots of environmental issues going on globally. The earth faces problems such as pollution, global warming, waste disposal, and loss of biodiversity. These are just a small amount of issues out of the so many. These environmental problems pose an abundant amount of risk to the health of humans and animals. There needs to be a solution to all these problems and that is by informing others, so that way everyone can make the environment a better place.