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The River Continuum Concept is based on the idea that a watercourse is an open ecosystem that is in constant interaction with the bank, and moving from source to mouth, constantly changing. [4] Basis for this change in the overall system is due to the gradual change of physical environmental conditions such as the width, depth, water, flow ...
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.
Ecosystems may be habitats within biomes that form an integrated whole and a dynamically responsive system having both physical and biological complexes. Ecosystem ecology is the science of determining the fluxes of materials (e.g. carbon, phosphorus) between different pools (e.g., tree biomass, soil organic material).
For example, among aquatic ecosystems, higher rates of production are usually found in large rivers and shallow lakes than in deep lakes and clear headwater streams. [25] Among terrestrial ecosystems, marshes, swamps, and tropical rainforests have the highest primary production rates, whereas tundra and alpine ecosystems have the lowest. [25]
Environmental education is not restricted to in-class lesson plans. Children can learn about the environment in many ways. Experiential lessons in the school yard, field trips to national parks, after-school green clubs, and school-wide sustainability projects help make the environment an easily accessible topic.
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The roots of tropical ecology can be traced to the voyages of European naturalists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Men who might be considered early ecologists such as Alexander Von Humboldt, Thomas Belt, Henry Walter Bates, and even Charles Darwin sailed to tropical locations and wrote extensively about the exotic flora and fauna they encountered.