Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by organisms in interaction with their environment. [2]: 458 The biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Ecosystems are controlled by external and internal factors.
Ecosystem services are ecologically mediated functional processes essential to sustaining healthy human societies. [6] Water provision and filtration, production of biomass in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries, and removal of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere are examples of ecosystem services essential to public health and economic opportunity.
Ecological science has boomed in the industrial investment of restoring ecosystems and their processes in abandoned sites after disturbance. Natural resource managers, in forestry , for example, employ ecologists to develop, adapt, and implement ecosystem based methods into the planning, operation, and restoration phases of land-use.
Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, a subset of Earth system science, that takes a holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general systems theory to ecology.
By the most general biophysiological definition, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.
A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology.. In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage.
As systems biology, systems ecology seeks a holistic view of the interactions and transactions within and between biological and ecological systems. Earth system science (ESS) is the application of systems science to the Earth.
An example of ecological diversity on a global scale would be the variation in ecosystems, such as deserts, forests, grasslands, wetlands and oceans. Ecological diversity is the largest scale of biodiversity, and within each ecosystem, there is a great deal of both species and genetic diversity. [1] [2] [3] [4]