ECOSYSTEM

We live in a wonderful world, full of natural beauties, fascinating animals and different kinds of crops and so on. It is our responsibility to learn about our environment and the eco-system we live in.

An ecosystem may be very small like a pond or it can be large like a desert or a rain forest. There are freshwater ecosystems that have less space than saltwater ecosystems. It is not important for an eco-system to be big or small, what is more important is that all ecosystems are made up of the same parts.

An ecosystem is all the things that interact with each other in a specific area, these things may be living or non-living. Some examples of non-living things that support life in an ecosystem can be light, air, soil and water. Living things are the plants and animals and we learn in science lessons that these living things are also called organisms, and they use those resources.

Every specific ecosystem in the world has its own conditions created by the non-living things. These conditions decide what kinds of living things will be able to grow and develop there. Organisms can only thrive when and where the environment meets their needs. Everything in an organism’s environment has an effect on it. One ecosystem that allows many different kinds of organisms to thrive is a temperate zone so they need a place with an average temperature all the time.

All the living things in an ecosystem are called a community. All of one specific kind of organism living in a community is called a population. For example, all the frogs are part of a community but all the tree frogs in a rainforest are one population in that community. All the white birch trees are another population within the same community. All the jaguars are another rainforest community population.

All living organisms perform certain life processes. They take in nutrients like air, sunlight, water and food. And they use energy from those nutrients to grow and develop. They release this energy by doing work and moving and they also send waste products into nature. They react to things in their environment. They reproduce and have offspring or babies, that are very similar to themselves.