Ecosystem
Concept · Biology, stage 1: Learn the vocabulary
An ecosystem is a community of organisms together with the physical environment they exchange energy and matter with, treated as one unit. Energy enters mostly as sunlight, is captured by producers, and is passed along as one organism eats another, with most of it lost as heat at each step. Matter, by contrast, cycles: carbon, nitrogen, and water move through organisms and back into soil, water, and air.
Why it matters
It is the level at which questions about climate, agriculture, and pollution are actually posed, because those questions are about flows rather than about individual organisms.
Part of
Sources
- Ecosystem Wikipedia
- Ecology Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyOn what kind of object an ecosystem is, and whether stability and balance claims about it hold up.
- Ecological Society of America Ecological Society of America
