On the first exercise of the Environmental Biology class, the students have learned what an ecosystem is and what its significance to the survival of the living and non-living are through analysis of forest and agro-ecosystems. The ecosystem as the basic unit for ecological study (Evans, 1956) consists of the complex of interacting organisms inhabiting a region with all the non-living physical factors that make up their environment (Likens, 1992). It is essential, not just for the ecologist, to study the structural and functioning relationships of ecosystem components to be able to predict how the system will respond to natural change and human disturbance. Thus, this exercise uses another type of ecosystem as a channel of understanding the interface of the living, specifically humankind, to their environment, the lake ecosystem.
Insignificant it seems with its 0.009 per cent contribution to the total amount of water in the world, freshwater and saline (saltwater) lakes are still an extremely valuable resource. Its various usages include rich habitats to diverse plants and animals, important spring of livelihood and fish protein for communities, beneficial source of hydroelectric energy especially in remote areas and irrigation water for farms, useful means of transportation and appealing destination for tourists. Lakes also offer as catch basins for sediments from the entire watershed around them. With these numerous functions, most of the lakes are abused and their usefulness is put into expense causing the ecosystem and the organisms dependent on it harm and destruction. This is what becoming of the largest lake in the country, the Laguna de Bay.
*insert something that had been said by someone about Laguna lake*. More than the economic goods and environmental services it provides there is a call for action of Filipinos to conserve the remaining life of the Laguna Lake, which is an
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