Biology
Ecosystems
A forest, a pond, a meadow: living things and their environment together form one big whole.
What you need first
Picture a forest. Trees, fungi, deer, beetles, plus soil, water, air, and sunlight. All of this belongs together and affects one another. Such an interplay of living things and their non living environment is called an ecosystem. A pond is an ecosystem, a meadow is one, and the whole Earth is made up of countless of them.
Three roles in the ecosystem
Every ecosystem has three big roles. Producers are the plants, and in a pond the tiny algae as well: using sunlight they build their own food and stand right at the beginning. Consumers are the animals that have to eat. Plant eaters like the deer nibble on plants, meat eaters like the fox hunt other animals. Decomposers like fungi and bacteria break dead material back down.
Eats: nothing, it is a producer
Eaten by: Hare, Mouse, Beetle
If it disappears: Without grass all herbivores lose their food and the whole web collapses.
Materials go around in a circle
When a leaf falls or an animal dies, nothing is lost. Decomposers break the remains into simple materials that go back into the soil. From these materials new plants grow, which feed animals again. So everything goes around in a circle, this is called a nutrient cycle. If one part drops out, the whole cycle starts to wobble.
That is exactly what makes an ecosystem so exciting: everything is connected to everything. If the bees disappear, many flowers lose their pollinators and never turn into fruit. If a predator becomes rarer, its prey multiplies strongly and eats the plants bare. An ecosystem is a delicate net made of many threads.
Exercises
0 of 6 solvedTime to try it yourself. You can't break anything, every attempt counts.
Which living things count as producers?
What job do decomposers like fungi and bacteria have?
In an ecosystem there are producers, consumers, and decomposers. How many big roles is that together?
Match each of the three roles in the ecosystem with the right description.
In a meadow there are 4 plant species and 3 animal species. How many species is that together?
Put the steps of the nutrient cycle in the correct order, beginning with something dying.
- 1A leaf falls or an animal dies
- 2Decomposers break the remains into simple materials
- 3The materials go back into the soil
- 4The plants feed animals again
- 5New plants grow from the materials
Where this leads