Environment
Environment
Environment
Environment
Environment
• Ecosystem: Defined area in which a community lives with interactions
taking place among the organisms between the community and its non
living physical environment.
• An ecosystem is formed by the interactions between all living and non-
living things
Terminolgy
• System= regularly interacting and interdependent components forming a
unified whole
• Ecosystem = an ecological system;
= a community and its physical environment treated together as a functional
system
Ecology
The study of the distribution and abundance of organisms
And
The flow of energy and materials between abiotic and biotic components
of ecosystems
Ecosystems : basic features
• Structure
▪ Living (biotic)- which includes non-living things
▪ Non Living (abiotic) – which includes living things
• Process
▪ Energy flow
▪ Cycling of matter( chemicals)
• Change:
▪ Dynamic
▪ Succession
Abiotic components:
• Solar energy provides practically all the energy for ecosystems
• Inorganic substances, e.g., Sulphur, boron, tend to cycle through
ecosystems.
• Organic compounds such as proteins , carbohydrates, lipids and other
complex molecules, from a link between biotic and abiotic components
of the system
➢Biotic components:
• The biotic components of an ecosystem can be classified according to
their mode of energy acquisition
• In this type of classification, there are:
Autotrophs and Heterotrophs
• Organisms that produce their own food from an energy source , such as
the sun, and inorganic compounds
• Organisms that consume other organisms as a food source
Importance of ecosystems
i. Wetlands
✓Wetlands provide flood protection by absorbing excess water from
storm events,with a being capable of absorbing upto 1.5 million gallon
of water. single acre of wetlands
ii. Forests:
✓In addition to timber, forests ecosystems supply clean air by processing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and according to the National
Research Council, Forest ecosystem also provide a source of sustainable
clean water.
iii. Rainforests
✓Human health depends upon rainforest ecosystems, from which at
least 25% of modern pharmaceuticals originated.