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ECOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM
ECOLOGY
No living thing exist in isolation. It interacts with other living things and with its physical surroundings. The scientific study of these relationship is called ECOLOGY.
Ecologists consider all the organisms that live in one area as inter-dependent community. All plants and animals rely on and influence vital factors in their environment, such as the supply of nutrients, food and water. A community and its environment is called an ECOSYSTEM.
Difference Between Ecology and Environment
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Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural/physical environment.The environment is the set of circumstances surrounding that organism. The physical environment includes light, heat or solar radiation, moisture, wind, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients in soil, water and atmosphere. The biological environment includes organisms of the same kind as well as other plants and animals.
For example, lets say that ecology would be the study of the students interaction or relationship with the classroom as a whole. The classroom being the environment in which the student lives, the scientific study would said to be Student ecology and the set of circumstances surrounding the student in that environment would be the teacher/teachers, books, other students, etc and said to be ecosystem. |
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Environment is the sub-discipline of biology that concentrates on the relationships between organisms and their environments; it is also called environmental biology. |
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Ecology is concerned with patterns of distribution (where organisms occur) and with patterns of abundance (how many organisms occur) in space and time where as environmentalism is concerned with the impact of human activities on environment and the steps to be taken to improve its quality. |
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The most important difference between ecology and environment is that, environmentalist is more concerned with the interaction between natural resources and environment. He is keener on making predictions for making the future interactions better. Ecologists are more concerned about the available natural resources scattered throughout in environment. For example renewable and non-renewable! They are more interested in studying the running of different ecosystems and also about the influence inhabitants’ cause on the available natural resources. |
ECOSYSTEM
The living community of plants and animals in any area together with the non-living components of the environment-such as soil, air and water-constitute the ecosystem. A system formed by the interaction of biotic and abiotic components with each other is called ecosystem. The study of Ecosystem is called ecology.
An ecosystem is a complex set of relationship among the living resources, habitats and residents of an area. It includes plants, trees, animals, fish, birds, micro-organism, water, soil and people.
Ecosystem vary greatly in size and elements that make them but each is a functioning unit of nature. Everything that lives in an ecosystem is dependent on the other species and elements that are also part of that ecological community. If one part of an ecosystem is damaged or disappears, it has an impact on everything else. When an ecosystem is healthy, scientist say it is sustainable. This means that all the elements live in balance and are capable of reproducing themselves. There is usually biodiversity, meaning that there are a variety of living organisms and species in that environment.
An ecosystem is commonly a large area and can include many sq.km of land or water. It includes many interconnected habitats. The two most important things to emphasize about an ecosystem are that all the members (living and non-living) are connected and that changes in one habitat or organism cause changes in another.
Difference Between Ecology and Ecosystem
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An ecosystem is a natural unit comprising all living and non living things in the area and how biotic and abiotic components function together while influencing each other. Thus it talks about not just the living organisms but also abiotic factors that affect life inside the system. |
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Ecology is a comprehensive study of organisms and their relation with the environment they live in and interact with one another. It includes the amount and spread of organisms and how and why their distribution is affected by their relationship with the environment. An ecosystem on the other hand is a sub-set of ecology and mean all the complicated interactions that take place among living and non-living things in an area. |
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Ecology is the study of the relationship between living organisms and their environment. An ecosystem is a place, such as a rotting log, a forest, or even a schoolyard, where interactions between living and non-living things occur. All living organisms and non-living parts within this place are interacting all the time and adjustments must occur if the organisms are to survive. Living organisms make up the biotic components of the ecosystem, while non-living things make up the abiotic parts of the same ecosystem. Ecosystems vary in size and complexity. |
Difference Between Environment and Ecosystem
Environment and ecosystem both are deeply interrelated terms concerned with nature,but there are many differences between them.
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An environment is the surroundings in which we live in. An ecosystem is like a community, functioning with an environment to make up basically one big unit.It is the combination of plants, animals, micro-organisms and non-living things found in one area. It can be a vast rainforest covering an entire country or a tiny mud puddle in the back yard. Earth's many ecosystems are influenced by weather, geography, geology and human activity. |
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An ecosystem involves all of the living organisms within an area interacting with themselves and their physical environment, whereas the word environment is very vague and usually refers to the physical surroundings in which organisms live. |
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Ecosystem refers to a biological community that occurs in some place or geographical region and consists of both biotic and abiotic components that collectively make up its environment. Ecosystems vary in size. They can be as small as a puddle or as large as the Earth itself. Any group of living and nonliving things interacting with each other can be considered as an ecosystem.
When we talk of environment, we are mostly concerned with that part of the ecosystem that makes up the atmosphere. Environment is different from ecosystem as it talks about surroundings and not about organisms and their interactions with other organisms. Generally abiotic components are taken into consideration when we refer to environment such as pollution of water, pollution of air, ozone layer, global warming etc.Ecosystems will fail if they do not remain in balance.
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Types of Ecosystems
There are many types of ecosystems on earth. There are three major classes of ecosystems:
1. Fresh water Ecosystems
2. Terrestrial Ecosystems
3. Ocean Ecosystems
Examples of Ecosystems
Pond Ecosystem: In a pond, frogs, fishes, other tiny insects, several bacteria, fungi, algae with a variety of plants may be present. Some plants may float on water surface and some completely submerged in the water. Some water birds may be swimming on water surface. Fishes and frogs eat small insects. Small animals (insects etc) eat small plants. The water plants need CO2 to prepare their food, this CO2 comes from the pond animals. During food preparation process plants give out oxygen, this oxygen is utilized by the pond animals. This form a pond ecosystem.
Forest Ecosystem: This includes inorganic and organic substances present in the atmosphere and soil. Tree and shrubs are also present in forest. There are small animals feeding on tree leaves these are ants, beetles, flies, spiders and grasshoppers. Different kinds of big animals and birds, snakes, lizards are also present in the forest. They all are inter-related with each other for food, energy, oxygen and other components which are essential for their survival and life processes.
Sea Ecosystem: In sea, we find so many types of plants and animals. Some plants and animals are very minute and some are very big. Green plants prepare food, these plants are eaten by the small animals and small animals are eaten by the huge animals. Their main need is food, oxygen, carbon-dioxide and other life process components. They are inter-related with each other for their essential components for life process.
How Ecosystem Affect Human Life
Every ecosystem has several interrelated mechanisms that affect human life. These are The Water Cycle, The Carbon Cycle, The Oxygen Cycle, The Nitrogen Cycle and The Energy Cycle. Every ecosystem is controlled by these cycles and each ecosystem’s abiotic and biotic features are distinct from each other.
All functions of the ecosystem are in some way related to the growth and re-generation of its plant and animal species.
The water cycle depends on the rainfall, which is necessary for plants and animals to live.
Carbon is found in components of ecosystem and it is building block of both plant and animal tissues. In the atmosphere carbon occurs as CO2 .Plants help in regulating and monitoring the percentage of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. Both plants and animals release CO2 during respiration. They also return fixed carbon to the soil in the waste they excrete. When plants and animals die, they return their carbon to the soil. These processes complete the carbon cycle and the oxygen cycle.
In the nitrogen cycle, plants absorb nitrogen in the form of nutrients and use for their growth. Nutrients are re-cycle back from animals to plants.
The energy cycle re-cycle nutrients into the soil on which plant life grows.
Our own lives are closely linked to the proper functioning of these cycles of life. These cycles are a part of global life processes and have specific features in each of the ecosystems. They are also linked to adjacent ecosystems as well as plants and animals communities in the region. Together, the cycles are responsible for maintaining life on Earth. If human activities go on altering them beyond the limits that nature can sustain, they will eventually break down and lead to a degraded Earth on which man will not be able to survive.
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