Lucien Ferrer

What is a Ecosystem?

By: Lucien Ferrer

 

An ecosystem is the grouping consisting of various organisms in which are both living and nonliving elements such as water, air, and land. Ecosystems can be classified by using two different distinct ways. The different classifications may be thought of as interdependent groups consisting of both plants and creatures, or equivalent structured organizations and societies ran by common principles. Both the biotic (human) and abiotic (non living) elements contribute or are part of various food cycles and energy streams. Ecosystems allow interactions among different organisms, such as an interaction between a organism such as a deer and their surroundings. Ecosystems can be various sizes, but each core idea in a ecosystems is connectedness. These components of the ecosystem are interconnected in a critical manner needed for their survival. Every organism despite the size contributes to the ecosystem, by increasing it’s chances to go through its bond to the system.

In an ecosystem, each individual organism has its very own character and purpose. Minimum change to one organism can affect the weight of the ecosystem, and can even be lethal for all organisms dependent on it. One example of a system in a ecosystem is the large Coral Reefs, but however there are often smaller ecosystems. Each system may vary in size and contents, but regardless of the magnitude, the symbiotic relationship is what's important.  Furthermore, Earth is also considered a system on a much larger scale. When us humans emit external elements, such as CO2 or gas, it destroys the equilibrium of the system in which affects those who are reliant. The aftermath consists of global warming, extinction of species, food famine etc. These impacts affect every living organism on this planet, which includes us humans.

An ecosystem can be easily destroyed by a non native species. With a non native species entering an ecosystem could result in negative effects on a ecosystems such as, a rise in temperature, sea level, and even climate change. The non native species can also affect the natural balance and can even potentially destroy the ecosystem. It's quite unfortunate how ecosystems have been depleted and destroyed by man-made activities, such as deforestation, human expansion and even natural activities like fires, floods, and storms. In order to help preserve native environments, humans need to live more adequately amongst other organisms. For an example in the mountain ecosystem, if a non native rabbit species would to be introduced, the producers such as grass would be affected negatively.

Humans quite often operate within ecosystems and can frequently heavily influence both internal and external factors. For an example, global warming is a  prime example of a gradual effect of human activities. Ecosystems often provide benefits to various organisms, which is called ecosystem services, where organisms rely on another for their livelihood. In order to maintain an healthy ecosystem health level, an adequate ecosystem management system is needed to manage various individual species. As in the mountain ecosystem, if only the mountain lion and mouses were present, the ecosystem would decrease quickly due to minimal factors in the ecosystem.

What makes ecosystems unique is the complexity of different communities consisting of both biotic factors and living organisms,  to interact with each other in order to support the living things within the ecosystem. Ecosystems usually contain animals and plants that need to eat, reproduce, and compete against other competitors.  By studying the uniqueness of ecosystems, you can discover a lot of interesting facts about how ecosystems operate to sustain large amounts of life. When considering general facts or rules for an ecosystems that requires plants, which are applied to specific ecosystems such as grasslands, in which the general facts helps explain how grasslands require grass so goats can graze and humans can use them for their economy.

Due to ecosystem component being interdependent, by adding and or removing a single part of the ecosystem health could result in both a negative and positive change. For an example in a ecosystem where the soil is corroded, to rebuild the organic matter by pumping carbon dioxide into the soil improving the ecosystem health positively. In order to replenish food reliant ecosystems that were destroyed by human activities,  the need to replenish the soil to a healthy state to grow crops is important in order to sustain all organisms present in the ecosystem. As in a mountain ecosystem in order to grow the trees needed to house/support other organisms first you need to replenish the soil.

Ecosystems are often larger than they appear, for an example a community could contain several ecosystems within itself. With various relationships consisting of organisms such as animals, water, and trees, the various interactions amongst neighboring ecosystems are important. Communities in which are present in ecosystems often are present in both natural and human made environments, making their own neighborhoods/communities.