Ecosystems: The Biotic Environment

As defined by “Environmental Science- 14th Edition”, an ecosystem is “a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy.” I will be using the computer simulation to alter the interactions of the organisms in the ecosystem to see what changes occur.

Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the relationship between organisms and their environment. Ecology is a basic tool of environmental science.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment. If one of the organisms is disturbed, it can change the trophic cascade which is a sequence of impacts down the food chain. Hannibal supports this statement by writing “keeping these connections going ensures healthy, functioning ecosystems, which in turn support human life.”(578) An example of this is if all of the beavers died the other organisms would go somewhere else or die due because they no longer will have dams to support their ideal habitat.

Ecosystem management takes an integrated view of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, integrates ecological concepts at a variety of spatial scales, incorporates the perspectives of landscape ecology so that the range of possible landscapes in an ecosystem is recognized and preserved, and is an evolving paradigm incorporating the objective of ecological sustainability.

Evolution: A heritable change in the characteristics within a population from one generation to the next; the development of new types of organisms from preexisting types of organisms over

Ecosystem: a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Since the induction of the Affordable Care Act the Mayo Clinic reached a new goal of 63 million patient services in 2013. (Mayo Clinic , 2014) There has been substantial growth as seen in 2011 they reported just over 20 million patient services. (Mayo Clinic , 2014) The Affordable Care Act has allowed those patients that could not afford health insurance and or issues with pre-existing conditions to finally be able to seek out treatment with the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic had recognized early on that there would need to be health care reform to ensure the future of quality patient care. In 2006 the Mayo Clinic started the

-Ecosystem: any environment containing living organisms interacting with each other and with the non-living parts of that environment.

Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the interactions of organisms with each other, and with their physical and chemical environments. Another main topic discussed in this chapter is ecosystems. Ecosystems are habitats or areas that consists of two basic components. Ecosystems include such things as biotic and abiotic components. Biotic components are living organisms within an ecosystem and abiotic components are things like sunlight, temperature, and rainfall. Within an ecosystem are producer and autotrophs. Producers and autotrophs consist of plants, algae, and bacteria. These two organisms obtain food from inorganic materials and light energy. As to where consumer and heterotrophs obtain energy by eating plants or the animals that eat the plants. An ecosystem is made up of several different parts. Each part of an ecosystem is different from the other. None of these parts within the ecosystem rely on the other. They are all interdependent being either predators or

There are different sorts of environments scattered over the earth, but what and where are they? In World Biodiversity Expedition, the reader is to collect data about these organisms and the environment they are settled at. A biome is often mistaken as an ecosystem, however, it is defined by non-living factors such as climate, soils, and vegetation. This unit helped me understand more clearly that there are so many organisms that I did not know anything about. I learned a lot from this specific unit when it comes to discoverying animals and organisms that I did not know exist.

Biodiversity is the expression used to define the variety of plant species, animals and micro-organisms within the ecosystems in which they live. The Macquarie University describes biodiversity as “a useful indicator for the overall health and viability of natural environments” (Mq.edu.au.) This investigation will delve into how a creek’s ecosystem affects and correlates to the health of the water and the surrounding environment.

What lives there? (give 2 examples of plants and 2 examples of animals that live there. For each, explain how it is adapted to survive in this particular type of ecosystem):

An ecosystem is the dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment as a functional unit. Ecosystems are systems through which incoming solar energy is captured and channelled through a hierarchy of life forms. Each ecosystem has its own characteristic plant and animal community.

Ecology today can be defined as “the study of the interrelationships between living things and their environment”. It is important to understand that when we say that ecology includes the “environment”, we are talking about everything that is external to an organism, all the biotic and abiotic. Nowadays it also attempts to understand and explain the how and why of the origins and mechanisms of interactions.

Biodiversity presents occurrence of variety of species and their natural community in which they live. By the definition it is “The degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. It is a measure of the health of ecosystems and is in part a function of climate.” (Rutherford) Ecosystem is on the other hand, “ community and its abiotic environment”( Rutherford). Biodiversity exists in every ecosystem, weather it is big one, or just ecosystem of one garden, it has the same importance because without it nature loses its ability to perform major functions needed for life on Earth, as it is oxygen production. Trough this investigation, two different ecosystems will be explored and