What do you mean by ecosystem

ADVERTISEMENTS: An organism is always in the state of perfect balance with the environment. The environment literally means the surroundings. The environment refers to the things and conditions around the organisms which directly or indirectly influence the life and development of the organisms and their populations. “Ecosystem is a complex in which habitat, plants and animals are considered as one interesting unit, the materials and energy of one passing in and out of the others” – Woodbury. ADVERTISEMENTS: Organisms and environment are two non-separable factors. Organisms interact with each other and also with the physical conditions that are present in their habitats. “The organisms and the physical features of the habitat form an ecological complex or more briefly an ecosystem.” (Clarke, 1954). The concept of ecosystem was first put forth by A.G. Tansley (1935). Ecosystem is the major ecological unit. It has both structure and functions. The structure is related to species diversity. The more complex is the structure the greater is the diversity of the species in the ecosystem. The functions of ecosystem are related to the flow of energy and cycling of materials through structural components of the ecosystem. According to Woodbury (1954), ecosystem is a complex in which habitat, plants and animals are considered as one interesting unit, the materials and energy of one passing in and out of the others. ADVERTISEMENTS: According to E.P. Odum, the ecosystem is the basic f...

Wildlife is important to the heritage, culture, and heart of America, and we want to preserve it as a legacy for our children. Although you cannot put a value on all the ways the natural world enriches our lives, there are many tangible benefits to living in a world with strong and healthy ecosystems. We have a stronger economy, diverse food products, and advancements in medical research as a result of wildlife and natural ecosystems. The value of nature to people has long been recognized, but in recent years, the concept of ecosystem services has been developed to describe these various benefits. An ecosystem service is any positive benefit that wildlife or ecosystems provide to people. The benefits can be direct or indirect—small or large. Four Types of Ecosystem Services The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a major UN-sponsored effort to analyze the impact of human actions on ecosystems and human well-being, identified four major categories of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. 1. Provisioning Services When people are asked to identify a service provided by nature, most think of food. Fruits, vegetables, trees, fish, and livestock are available to us as direct products of ecosystems. A provisioning service is any type of benefit to people that can be extracted from nature. Along with food, other types of provisioning services include drinking water, timber, wood fuel, natural gas, oils, plants that can be made into cloth...

An ecosystem is made up of all of the living and nonliving things in an area. This includes all of the plants, animals, and other An ecosystem usually contains many different kinds of life. A grassland, for example, is an ecosystem that contains more than just grass. It includes other plants, mammals, insects, earthworms, and many tiny living things in the soil. Each living thing in an ecosystem has a role to play—as a producer, a consumer, or a decomposer. Green plants are producers. They make their own food through a process called photosynthesis. Animals, including humans, are consumers. They eat, or consume, plants or other animals. Bacteria and other living things that cause decay are decomposers. Decomposers break down the waste products and dead tissue of plants and animals. They return nutrients to the soil, where new plants grow. The way that producers, consumers, and decomposers provide nutrients for one another is called a A food chain describes the order in which matter and energy move through the feeding levels of an ecosystem. The levels of a food chain are essentially the same across all ecosystems. The first level is the producers. After that is the consumers. Sometimes consumers are further divided into primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers. The final link in all food chains is the decomposers, which break down dead organisms and natural waste. The consumers at the top feeding level of a food chain are called top predators. They ha...

Ecosystem services are — The term “ecosystem services” is a relatively new one, first used to ascertain the value of nature to bring attention to environmental degradation. In 1997, Constanza et al. estimated that ecosystems provided on average US$33 trillion per year in services, compared to the global GNP at the time being $18 trillion per year. However, more recent estimates in 2011 suggest that ecosystems actually provide the equivalent of $125 trillion in services per year. Our growing understanding of the true worth of nature is worrying when set against the degradation ecosystems face. 4 Types of Ecosystem Services 1. Provisioning Services Provisioning services are characterised by the ability of humans to obtain products from ecosystems, such as food, water and resources, including wood, oil and genetic resources and medicines. JOIN THE MOVEMENT TODAY 2. Regulating Services Regulating services are categorised as any benefit obtained from the natural processes and functioning of ecosystems. Examples include climate regulation, flood regulation and other natural hazard regulation, pollination, water purification and more. For example, natural water purification services in Europe are valued at an estimated €33 billion per year . Further, pollination by wind and insects is a service that would not be possible without nature, particularly bees, as discussed in another one of our articles on the climate crisis and bees. You might also like: 3. Cultural Services Cultural...

Biodiversity includes not only species we consider rare, threatened, or endangered but also every living thing—from humans to organisms we know little about, such as microbes, fungi, and invertebrates. At the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, we include humans and human cultural diversity as a part of biodiversity. We use the term “biocultural” to describe the dynamic, continually evolving and interconnected nature of people and place, and the notion that social and biological dimensions are interrelated. This concept recognizes that human use, knowledge, and beliefs influence, and in turn are influenced, by the ecological systems of which human communities are a part. This relationship makes all of biodiversity, including the species, land and seascapes, and the cultural links to the places where we live—be right where we are or in distant lands—important to our wellbeing as they all play a role in maintaining a diverse and healthy planet. Why Is Biodiversity Important? Biodiversity is important to most aspects of our lives. We value biodiversity for many reasons, some utilitarian, some intrinsic. This means we value biodiversity both for what it provides to humans, and for the value it has in its own right. Utilitarian values include the many basic needs humans obtain from biodiversity such as food, fuel, shelter, and medicine. Further, ecosystems provide crucial services such as pollination, seed dispersal, climate regulation, water purification, nutrient cyclin...