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  2. Natural environment - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment

    The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components: Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms , soil , rocks , plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.

  3. Ecosystem - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem

    For example, ecosystems can be quite different if situated in a small depression on the landscape, versus one present on an adjacent steep hillside. [ 9 ] : 39 [ 10 ] : 66 Other external factors that play an important role in ecosystem functioning include time and potential biota , the organisms that are present in a region and could ...

  4. Ecology - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology

    The distinction between external and internal environments, however, is an abstraction parsing life and environment into units or facts that are inseparable in reality. There is an interpenetration of cause and effect between the environment and life. The laws of thermodynamics, for example, apply to ecology by means of its physical state. With ...

  5. Aquatic ecosystem - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ecosystem

    The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. [1] Freshwater ecosystems may be lentic (slow moving water, including pools , ponds , and lakes ); lotic (faster moving water, for example streams and rivers ); and wetlands (areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of the time).

  6. Life - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

    As a consequence of these microbial activities, the physical-chemical environment on Earth has been changing on a geologic time scale, thereby affecting the path of evolution of subsequent life. [95] For example, the release of molecular oxygen by cyanobacteria as a by-product of photosynthesis induced global changes in the Earth's environment ...

  7. Ecosystem ecology - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_ecology

    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.

  8. Biogeochemical cycle - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogeochemical_cycle

    Minerals cycle through the biosphere between the biotic and abiotic components and from one organism to another. [4] Ecological systems have many biogeochemical cycles operating as a part of the system, for example, the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, etc. All chemical elements occurring in organisms are part of ...

  9. Terrestrial ecosystem - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_ecosystem

    Terrestrial ecosystems occupy 55,660,000 mi 2 (144,150,000 km 2), or 28.26% of Earth's surface. [5] Major plant taxa in terrestrial ecosystems are members of the division Magnoliophyta (flowering plants), of which there are about 275,000 species, and the division Pinophyta (conifers), of which there are about 500 species.