What is an ecosystem?
An ecosystem is made up of all of the living and nonliving things in an area. This includes all of the plants, animals, and other living things that make up the communities of life in an area. An ecosystem also includes nonliving materials—for example, water, rocks, soil, and sand. A swamp, a prairie, an ocean, and a forest are examples of ecosystems.
An ecosystem usually contains many different kinds of life. A grassland, for example, is an ecosystem that contains more than just grass. It includes other plants, mammals, insects, earthworms, and many tiny living things in the soil.
All information directly from Kids Britannica - Ecosystem.
Why are ecosystems important?
Each living thing in an ecosystem has a role to play—as a producer, a consumer, or a decomposer. Green plants are producers. They make their own food through a process called photosynthesis. Animals, including humans, are consumers. They eat, or consume, plants or other animals. Bacteria and other living things that cause decay are decomposers. Decomposers break down the waste products and dead tissue of plants and animals. They return nutrients to the soil, where new plants grow. The way that producers, consumers, and decomposers provide nutrients for one another is called a food chain.
An ecosystem’s health depends on a delicate balance among all its members and the environment. If something disturbs the balance, the ecosystem and all its members may suffer. Natural things that can disturb ecosystems include a changing climate and natural disasters. Human activities that can disturb ecosystems include polluting and clearing land for farms or buildings by deforestation. This can result in desertification, more natural disasters and a lack of biodiversity because of species going extinct.
All information directly from Kids Britannica - Ecosystem.
Term definitions
- Deforestation
- The amount of people in the world keeps getting higher and people keep wanting to make big cities or factories. To make space for everyone big areas of forests are cut down and not replanted. This means that there is becoming less trees and forests in the world, this is called deforestation. But the ecosystems in the world needs forests to survive and us humans need forests to be able to breathe.
- Desertification
- When the trees in the forest are cut down we are left with big open spaces. Because the world keeps getting warmer there is less rain. When the big open spaces get too warm and dry, it becomes a desert and the crops and animals that live there die.
- Biodiversity
- When there are many different types of species in an ecosystem there is good biodiversity. Ecosystems need good biodiversity to survive. When there an ecosystem has bad biodiversity it means that too many species have died. If every one of the same species dies that species becomes extinct and will never exist again.