Ecosystem
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The word ecosystem is combination of the animals and plants, living things (biotic factors), and non-living things (abiotic factors), like the environment and climate, in an area. Another word for ecosystem is biotope.
Ecosystems are important because they help us to understand the relationships between all of the species that live in, or use, a physical area. Each species that lives in an area (for example deer), or uses it (migratory birds), has adapted, in some way, to that physical space. An amphibian is extremely important to scientists, because it allows them to study the condition of the aquatic (water) and terrestrial (land) habitats, instead of study two separate organisms.
Many different communities, and sub-communities, of animals and plants can live in an ecosystem. One practical way to describe an ecosystem is to create a map of the food networks (food chains and food webs) in it. Almost all of these maps would show that many different animals and plants need each other in order to survive.If a producer (plant) dies off, then the rest of a food chain will be greatly affected, because may animals rely on the energy they get from consuming (eating) plants to live.
This food network map would also show the locations where the fewest species of animals and plants come together, as predators and prey. The map can be used to describe the boundaries between different ecosystems. The food chains and webs are divided into levels called "trophic levels", or feeding levels. They begin with a producer (plant) at the first trophic level (as it is eaten by everything else), and move up, finally ending with a "top carnivore", or an animal that eats all of the other organisms in the food chain below them.the ecosystem is in our world or of the world's beneath so it should be *Links for Middle School students on Ecosystems and People
