Ecosystem
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Coral reefs are a highly productive marine ecosystem.
[1]
Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-
Koba National Park.
An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction
with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil),
interacting as a system.
[2]
These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together
through nutrient cycles and energy flows.
[3]
As ecosystems are defined by the network of
interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment,
[4]
they can be of
any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces
[5]
(although some scientists say that the
entire planet is an ecosystem).
[6]
Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential abiotic components of an ecosystem.
The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun. It generally enters
the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By
feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter
and energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass
present. By breaking down dead organic matter, decomposers release carbon back to the
atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to
a form that can be readily used by plants and other microbes.
[7]
Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate,
the parent material which forms the soil and topography, control the overall structure of an
ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the
ecosystem.
[8]
Other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic
entitiesinvariably, they are subject to periodic disturbances and are in the process of
recovering from some past disturbance.
[9]
Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in
different parts of the world can have very different characteristics simply because they contain
different species.
[8]
The introduction of non-native species can cause substantial shifts in
ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are also controlled
by them and are often subject to feedback loops.
[8]
While the resource inputs are generally
controlled by external processes like climate and parent material, the availability of these
resources within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors like decomposition, root
competition or shading.
[8]
Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of
species present. Although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects
are large enough to influence external factors like climate.
[8]
Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance and succession.
Ecosystems provide a variety of goods and services upon which people depend; the principles of
ecosystem management suggest that rather than managing individual species, natural resources
should be managed at the level of the ecosystem itself. Classifying ecosystems into ecologically
homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no
single, agreed-upon way to do this.
Natural environment
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For other uses, see Environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on
Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living
species.
[1]
The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished by components:
Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized
human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere,
and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries
Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such
as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism,
not originating from civilized human activity
The natural environment is contrasted with the built environment, which comprises the areas and
components that are strongly influenced by humans belonging to a civilized (i.e. hierarchically
structured, agricultural, densely populated, complexly systematized) society. A geographical area
is regarded as a natural environment.
It is difficult to find absolutely natural environments, and it is common that the naturalness
varies in a continuum, from ideally 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. More
precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that
their degree of naturalness is not uniform.
[2]
If, for instance, we take an agricultural field, and
consider the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil, we will find that whereas the
first is quite similar to that of an undisturbed forest soil, the structure is quite different.
Natural environment is often used as a synonym for habitat. For instance, when we say that the
natural environment of giraffes is the savanna.
Land management policies have been developed to preserve the natural characteristics of
Hopetoun Falls, Australia while allowing ample access for visitors
Bachalpsee in the Swiss Alps; generally mountainous areas are less affected by human activity.
A satellite image of the Sahara desert; the world's largest hot desert and third-largest desert after
Antarctica and the Arctic
Ecology
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For other uses, see Ecology (disambiguation).
Ecology
Ecology addresses the full scale of life, from tiny bacteria
to processes that span the entire planet. Ecologists study
many diverse and complex relations among species, such as
predation and pollination. The diversity of life is organized
into different habitats, from terrestrial (middle) to aquatic
ecosystems.
Ecology (from Greek: , "house"; -, "study of"
[A]
) is the scientific study of interactions
among organisms and their environment, such as the interactions organisms have with each other
and with their abiotic environment. Topics of interest to ecologists include the diversity,
distribution, amount (biomass), number (population) of organisms, as well as competition
between them within and among ecosystems. Ecosystems are composed of dynamically
interacting parts including organisms, the communities they make up, and the non-living
components of their environment. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production,
pedogenesis, nutrient cycling, and various niche construction activities, regulate the flux of
energy and matter through an environment. These processes are sustained by organisms with
specific life history traits, and the variety of organisms is called biodiversity. Biodiversity, which
refers to the varieties of species, genes, and ecosystems, enhances certain ecosystem services.
Ecology is an interdisciplinary field that includes biology and Earth science. The word "ecology"
("kologie") was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel (18341919). Ancient
Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates and Aristotle laid the foundations of ecology in their
studies on natural history. Modern ecology transformed into a more rigorous science in the late
19th century. Evolutionary concepts on adaptation and natural selection became cornerstones of
modern ecological theory. Ecology is not synonymous with environment, environmentalism,
natural history, or environmental science. It is closely related to evolutionary biology, genetics,
and ethology. An understanding of how biodiversity affects ecological function is an important
focus area in ecological studies. Ecologists seek to explain:
Life processes, interactions and adaptations
The movement of materials and energy through living communities
The successional development of ecosystems, and
The abundance and distribution of organisms and biodiversity in the context of the
environment.
Ecology is a human science as well. There are many practical applications of ecology in
conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management (agroecology,
agriculture, forestry, agroforestry, fisheries), city planning (urban ecology), community health,
economics, basic and applied science, and human social interaction (human ecology). Organisms
and resources compose ecosystems which, in turn, maintain biophysical feedback mechanisms
that moderate processes acting on living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) components of the
planet. Ecosystems sustain life-supporting functions and produce natural capital like biomass
production (food, fuel, fiber and medicine), the regulation of climate, global biogeochemical
cycles, water filtration, soil formation, erosion control, flood protection and many other natural
features of scientific, historical, economic, or intrinsic value.
Biosphere
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For other uses, see Biosphere (disambiguation).
A false-color composite of global oceanic and terrestrial photoautotroph abundance, from
September 1997 to August 2000. Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space
Flight Center and ORBIMAGE.
[citation needed]
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on
Earth, a closed system (apart from solar and cosmic radiation and heat from the interior of the
Earth), and largely self-regulating.
[1]
By the most general biophysiological definition, the
biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships,
including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.
The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning with a process of biopoesis (life created
naturally from non-living matter such as simple organic compounds) or biogenesis (life created
from living matter), at least some 3.5 billion years ago.
[2][3]
The earliest evidences for life on
Earth are graphite found to be biogenic in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered
in Western Greenland
[4]
and microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone
discovered in Western Australia.
[5][6]
In a general sense, biospheres are any closed, self-regulating systems containing ecosystems;
including artificial ones such as Biosphere 2 and BIOS-3; and, potentially, ones on other planets
or moons.
[7]
Adaptation
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This article is about the evolutionary process. For other uses, see Adaptation (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Adoption or Acclimatization.
Part of a series on
Evolutionary biology
Diagrammatic representation of the
divergence of modern taxonomic
groups from their common ancestor.
Key topics[show]
Introduction to evolution
Common descent
Evidence of common descent
An adaptation, also called an adaptive trait, in biology is a trait with a current functional role
in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection.
Adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary
process that leads to the adaptation. Adaptations contribute to the fitness and survival of
individuals. Organisms face a succession of environmental challenges as they grow and develop
and are equipped with an adaptive plasticity as the phenotype of traits develop in response to the
imposed conditions. The developmental norm of reaction for any given trait is essential to the
correction of adaptation as it affords a kind of biological insurance or resilience to varying
environments.
Animals and plants are adapted to the conditions of the
habitats in which they live.
Animals live everywhere on Earth. Some places on Earth are
very hot and some are very cold. Some places on Earth have a lot
of water and plants, and other places have very little water and few
plants. More than 99 percent of Antarctica is covered with ice but a
few plants still grow there, mostly lichens, mosses, and algae.
Antarctica is very cold.
Guess what?
Animals even live in Antarctica! The animals in Antarctica are
dependent on the sea for feeding or are migratory and leave the
continent when the winter arrives.
Animals can live in many different places in the world
because they have special adaptations to the area they live
in.
What is an adaptation?
An adaptation is a way an animal's body helps it survive, or live, in
its environment. Camels have learned to adapt (or change) so that
they can survive.
Animals depend on their physical features to help them
obtain food, keep safe, build homes, withstand weather, and
attract mates. These physical features are called called physical
adaptations. They makes it possible for the animal to live in a
particular place and in a particular way.
Each adaptation has been produced by evolution. This means that
the adaptations have developed over many generations.
Examples of the basic adaptations that help creatures
survive:
shape of a bird's beak,
the number of fingers,
colour of the fur,
the thickness or thinness of the fur,
the shape of the nose or ears
What is a mimicry adaptation?
Mimicry is adapting to look like something else. An example would
be the hawkmoth as it looks just like a dead leaf, tattered and
veined.
Population
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For other uses, see Population (disambiguation).
The distribution of human world population in 1994.
Key
A population is a summation of all the organisms of the same group or species, who live in the
same geographical area, and have the capability of interbreeding.
[1][2]
In ecology, the population of a certain species in a certain area is estimated using the Lincoln
Index. The area that is used to define a sexual population is defined as the area where inter-
breeding is potentially possible between any pair within the area. The probability of
interbreeding is greater than the probability of cross-breeding with individuals from other areas.
Under normal conditions, breeding is substantially more common within the area than across the
border.
[3]
In sociology, population refers to a collection of human beings. Demography is a social science
which entails the statistical study of human populations. This article refers mainly to human
population.
Community
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For other uses, see Community (disambiguation).
A community of interest gathers at Stonehenge, England, for the summer solstice.
A community is a social unit of any size that shares common values. Although embodied or
face-to-face communities are usually small, larger or more extended communities such as a
national community, international community and virtual community are also studied.
In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other
conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree
of cohesiveness.
Since the advent of the Internet, the concept of community has less geographical limitation, as
people can now gather virtually in an online community and share common interests regardless
of physical location. Prior to the internet, virtual communities (like social or academic
organizations) were far more limited by the constraints of available communication and
transportation technologies.
The word "community" is derived from the Old French comunete which is derived from the
Latin communitas (from Latin communis, things held in common), a broad term for fellowship or
organized society.
[1]
One broad definition which incorporates all the different forms of
community is
a group or network of persons who are connected (objectively) to each other by
relatively durable social relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties,
and who mutually define that relationship (subjectively) as important to their social
identity and social practice.
[2]
Classification of Communities | Back to Top
There are two basic categories of communities: terrestrial (land) and aquatic (water).
These two basic types of community contain eight smaller units known as biomes. A
biome is a large-scale category containing many communities of a similar nature,
whose distribution is largely controlled by climate
Terrestrial Biomes: tundra, grassland, desert, taiga, temperate forest, tropical
forest. Terrestrial biome distribution is shown in Figure 1.
Aquatic Biomes: marine, freshwater.
Figure 1. Major terrestrial biomes. Image from Purves et al., Life: The Science of
Biology, 4th Edition, by Sinauer Associates ([Link]) and WH Freeman
([Link]), used with permission.