Ecosystem?

skilline.com says:

lol
so I am

Vasanth says:

An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment

Overview

Arctic tundra on Wrangel Island, Russia.
Flora of Baja California Desert, Cataviña region, Mexico.
Savanna at Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania.
The Daintree Rainforest in Queensland, Australia.The term ecosystem was coined in 1930 by Roy Clapham, to denote the physical and biological components of an environment considered in relation to each other as a unit. British ecologist Arthur Tansley later refined the term, describing it as the interactive system established between biocoenosis (a group of living creatures) and their biotope (the environment in which they live).

Central to the ecosystem concept is the idea that living organisms are continually engaged in a set of relationships with every other element constituting the environment in which they exist. The human ecosystem concept is then grounded in the deconstruction of the human/nature dichotomy, and the emergent premise that all species are ecologically integrated with each other, as well as with the abiotic constituents of their biotope.

Ecosystems can be bounded and discussed with tremendous variety of scope, and describe any situation where there is relationship between organisms and their environment. A system as small as a household or university, or as large as a nation state, may then be suitably discussed as a human ecosystem. While they may be bounded and individually discussed, (human) ecosystems do not exist independently, but interact in a complex web of human and ecological relationships connecting all (human) ecosystems to make up the biosphere. As virtually no surface of the earth today is free of human contact, all ecosystems can be more accurately considered as human ecosystems.

Examples of ecosystem

Aquatic ecosystem
Chaparral
Coral reef
Desert
Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Human ecosystem
Large marine ecosystem
Littoral zone
Marine ecosystem
Rainforest
Savanna
Subsurface Lithoautotrophic Microbial Ecosystem
Taiga
Tundra
Urban ecosystem

The study of ecosystems

Introduction of new elements, whether biotic or abiotic, into an ecosystem tend to have a disruptive effect. In some cases, this can lead to ecological collapse or "trophic cascading" and the death of many species belonging to the ecosystem in question. Under this deterministic vision, the abstract notion of ecological health attempts to measure the robustness and recovery capacity for an ecosystem; i.e. how far the ecosystem is away from its steady state.

Often, however, ecosystems have the ability to rebound from a disruptive agent. The difference between collapse or a gentle rebound is determined by two factors — the toxicity of the introduced element and the resiliency of the original ecosystem.

Ecosystems are primarily governed by stochastic (chance) events, the reactions they provoke on non-living materials and the responses by organisms to the conditions surrounding them. Thus, an ecosystem results from the sum of myriad individual responses of organisms to stimuli from non-living and living elements in the environment. The presence or absence of populations merely depends on reproductive and dispersal success, and population levels fluctuate in response to stochastic events. As the number of species in an ecosystem is higher, the number of stimuli is also higher. Since the beginning of life, in this vision, organisms have survived continuous change through natural selection of successful feeding, reproductive and dispersal behavior. Through natural selection the planet’s species have continuously adapted to change through variation in their biological composition and distribution. Mathematically it can be demonstrated that greater numbers of different interacting factors tend to dampen fluctuations in each of the individual factors. Given the great diversity among organisms on earth, most of the time, ecosystems only changed very gradually, as some species would disappear while others would move in. Locally, sub-populations continuously go extinct, to be replaced later through dispersal of other sub-populations. Stochastists do recognize that certain intrinsic regulating mechanisms occur in nature. Feedback and response mechanisms at the species level regulate population levels, most notably through territorial behaviour. Andrewatha and Birch (1954) suggest that territorial behaviour tends to keep populations at levels where food supply is not a limiting factor. Hence, stochastists see territorial behaviour as a regulatory mechanism at the species level but not at the ecosystem level. Thus, in their vision, ecosystems are not regulated by feedback and response mechanisms from the (eco)system itself and there is no such thing as a balance of nature.

If ecosystems are indeed governed primarily by stochastic processes, they may be somewhat more resilient to sudden change, as each species would respond individually. In the absence of a balance of nature, the species composition of ecosystems would undergo shifts that would depend on the nature of the change, but entire ecological collapse would probably be less frequently occurring events.

The theoretical ecologist Robert Ulanowicz has used information theory tools to describe the structure of ecosystems, emphasizing mutual information (correlations) in studied systems. Drawing on this methodology, and prior observations of complex ecosystems, Ulanowicz depicts approaches to determining the stress levels on ecosystems, and predicting system reactions to defined types of alteration in their settings (such as increased or reduced energy flow, and eutrophication.See also Relational order theories, as to fundamentals of life organization.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment In 2005, the largest ever assessment of the earth’s ecosystems was conducted by a research team of over 1,000 scientists. The findings of the assessment were published in the multi volume Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which concluded that in the past 50 years humans have altered the earth’s ecosystems more than any other time in our history.

Angel_Afshan says:

well i dont seek interest in all thses lengthy informations. so heres a simple one
an ecosystem is the unit which fulfills all the basi and energy requirements of the organisms it is capable of supporting ( they interact with each other and it also consists of food chains and food webs). it is a basic structural and funtional unit. it comprises the biotic (producers, consumers and decomposers), abiotic componenets and physical factors( climatic conditions ,soil, co2 etc.) there are 2 types of ecosystems natural and artificial( man made). natural like forests, meadows and man made like aquarium etc.