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Introduction to Ecosystems
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the living organisms and the nonliving within a particular area, with all the organisms interacting with each other, such as air, soil, water and sunlight. Some of the Australia’s largest ecosystems are the Kakadu National Park which is located at the top of the Northern Territory near Darwin and the Great Barrier Reef which is found off the coast of Brisbane in Australia. But due to Global Warming and human impacts, these ecosystems are now at risk.
Species Diversity and Genetic Diversity
The Great Barrier Reef is located of the coast of Brisbane in Australia, stretching from the tip from Cape York Peninsula to Bundaberg with the length of 2 600km. It is the largest world’s largest coral reef system composed from over 2 900 individual reefs and covering an area of 344 400km2. Due to its immense size and favourable conditions, it contains a high species diversity of many of the world’s fish and coral with over 1 500 species of fish and 400 species of coral. It also contains 215 different species of water birds and has the largest population of dugongs which are on the verge of extinction. This displays to us that the Great Barrier Reef contains many of the world’s marine life and is home to most of our coral.
The Kakadu National Park is Australia's largest national park at 19,840km2 which is equivalent to Wales or Israel. It is also the world's second largest national park after Northeast Greenland National Park. It is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage for both natural and cultural values as it is one of four Australian sites with both outstanding cultural and natural universal