Mrs. Faith Maranan Odessa Tumbali
The Interactions and Interrelationships among the Different Components of the Ecosystem
I. Introduction
Ecology is the study of environmental systems, or as it is sometimes called, the economy of nature (Hall and Weiss, 2010). It studies interactions between different organisms and their environments, including relations within its own species and members of others. Ecology focuses more on the population, community, and ecosystem ecology although it also includes a wide variety of fields. Both the living (biotic) and the non-living (abiotic) components of the natural world is its subject matter. Processes like primary production, nutrient cycling, and various niche construction energies are sustained by the biodiversity within them and regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment. Biodiversity is the variety and also the abundance of plants and animals in a particular environment and the processes that are functionally enriched by ecological interactions.
The ecosystem is defined as a unit of biosphere which has the structural and functional parts. It consists of the biotic components and the physical environment including the interactions between them. There are different kinds of ecosystem. Some are temporary and some are permanent. They may be natural which includes the freshwater systems and the forest ecosystems. There are also manmade which includes the agroecosystem like rice fields. It can be small as a fallen log or as big as an ocean. There is also a small ecosystem known as the micro ecosystem. The distinct community consisting of number of different species forms an ecosystem.
Students of environmental biology and other enthusiasts in the field of ecology will be able to identify the different components of an ecosystem and their interactions by observing the organisms in their own environment.
II. Objectives
References: Hall and Weis "Ecology". In: Encyclopedia of Earth. August 3, 2010; http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ecology iSpot