The Relative Importance of Physical and Human Factors in Causing Change in Ecosystems

Ecology is how organisms interact with each other and the environment. The Lion King is linked to ecology by showing how organisms interact with each other and the environment. My three topics are how symbiotic relationships are important to a community, how limiting factors affect a community, how communities respond to abiotic or biotic factors, and how this is linked to the movie and Ecology. Symbiotic Relationships are interactions between two species and how they affect each other. There are three different types of symbiotic relationships Mutualism, Commensalism, and Parasitism.

The first example of human manipulation of changes within the biosphere is through expansion. The rapid growth of the population has led to expansion in development; the need for more space is causing strain on other living organisms such as plants and animals. Human procurement of forest, grass, and wetlands has weighed on the animal population heavily. As a result of this domination, animals have lost areas they use to thrive in, causing migration and in more serious cases extinction. Animals are a prevalent source of protein for humans, and when a species is threatened by extinction, it not only disrupts the balance of the ecosystem, but it also disrupts the food chain. The more resources that are required to sustain human life, the bigger the need to migrate to surrounding areas in a short period of time (Haines).

Ecological succession is the process where an ecosystem changes through time after some disturbance. Ecological succession is the major cause of ecological change. During this time, the community begins with few pioneering plants and animals and develops until it becomes stable. Also, it continues so that more and different kinds of organisms can be found in the location which leads to a diverse community (MacMillan 38)

There is a famous quote by John Maxwell, where he said “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional”. Changes occur everywhere around us and it is how we adapt to those changes defines how we grow as a community causing further change to the environment. John Cronon, the author of Changes in the Land, writes about the interactions between the environment and its people. People are not the sole cause of ecological change. Some ecological change is also caused by natural events such as climate changes, floods, forest fires, and even drought. But these events do not drastically change the ecosystem as the changes brought by the interactions of Native Americans and Europeans with the environment. Changes caused by people such as Native Americans and English colonists affects the environment and results in a change in the environment where, now the people have to adapt to change in the environment.

There are many factors that account for the changes to the vegetation over time within ecosystems in the British Isles, such as human activity, climate, soil, light availability and intensity and natural disasters. The characteristics of the vegetation that are influenced by these factors are height, distribution, variety of species, adaptations and density of the vegetation. Some of these factors have relatively little influence on the succession development, whereas others have a dramatic influence over a long period of time, such as human activity. These factors, over time, result in the progression of a succession until the climatic climax vegetation is reached. However, sometimes these factors can mean that a plagioclimax is reached,

Ecosystems is the dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment that work together to form a functional unit and they are constantly changing due to the fluctuating equilibrium from natural stress and human action which has had adversarial impacts on ecosystems. This is evident in Minnamurra rainforest as human induced modifications and environmental stresses had resulted in a vulnerable ecosystem. Furthermore, the removal of factors that contribute to the vulnerability of an ecosystem is important as it affect the functioning of the ecosystem as processes are accelerated, biodiversity is decreased which greatly affects humans. Despite the negative effects caused by humans, they have discovered that ecosystems are susceptible from harm caused by natural environmental factors or human impacts and realised the importance of protecting and managing ecosystems therefore have implemented management strategies that are supposed to prevent further detriment and as a consequence may induce resiliency.

The article discussed the changes in many habitats due to anthropogenic activity. Anthropogenic is an adjective that describes changes in nature due to the people. Next, this article discussed climate change and the impact that it is having on species like clams, and fish due to ocean temperatures rising. The article also addressed carbon dating of fossils to look for cause of extinctions. Human development and agriculture have had a tremendous impact on the population of many species that are terrestrial. Deforestation is a big problem that has caused a decline in the bird species. Commercial fishing in many areas has led to a decline in fish populations. Furthermore this article

The audience of this book is presumed to be the general person who is not fully intact with the ideas that he or she is disrupting the ecosystem and is not aware of the effects they are doing as a whole. The book argues that no ecosystem is completely inert as things such as climate changes or drought can also affect the enviorment. Without human interaction an environment can still have issues, but the introduction of human life and economy does take a grave toll on the climate. These are irreversible effects that mankind are doing to the ecosystem. The English

In order for an ecosystem to stay an ecosystem there are three aspects that interact with each other:

A similar conservation legislation has been successfully enacted in the past by the government of Panama to protect vulnerable island ecosystems. For example, Isla Iguana has been given the status of “wildlife refuge,” which protects the island's flora and fauna while also allowing tourism and local use under the supervision of park rangers (Voirin, 2015). A similar status as a protected national park, with park rangers and a ranger station, for Isla Escudo de Veraguas would not only protect the native wildlife, but could also regulate the island's usage by the local indigenous visitors and

Within each of these fields there are environmental factors that affect an individual scale. Furthermore, once a single sub-sect changes in ecology it affects its predecessor and successor. Due to these constant changes in the environment as a whole,

The example for the relation of biotic feedback mechanism that affects the ecosystem resilience and regime shifts could be found

Human intrusions are the largest threat to the ecosystem on the Galapagos Islands. This is due to the increase in tourism over the past 16 years. Tourism has grown at a rate of 14% per year (Watkins and Cruz, 2007). The number of hotels on the islands has increased from 33 to 65 and the number of bars and restaurants has increased from 880 to 1,668 (Watkins and Cruz, 2007). This is definitely an indicator of how much tourism has grown on the islands. This causes massive problems in the ecosystem. The only way to these tourists can get to the islands is by boat. The boats that bring the people to the islands are bringing more pollution and waste. The tourists on these boats are bringing plants and animals with them that carry germs, disease, and insects that threaten the native populations on the islands.

     As I mentioned before our environment has a great effect on our nature. For example a theory claimed that, the first humans

Sometimes human’s actions affect biome. On a grassland human’s actions can affect too such as:the