Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Each level in the hierarchy represents an increase in organisational complexity, with each "object" being primarily composed of the previous level's basic unit. [2] The basic principle behind the organisation is the concept of emergence —the properties and functions found at a hierarchical level are not present and irrelevant at the lower levels.
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).
Ecosystem classifications are specific kinds of ecological classifications that consider all four elements of the definition of ecosystems: a biotic component, an abiotic complex, the interactions between and within them, and the physical space they occupy. Biotic factors of the ecosystem are living things; such as plants, animals, and bacteria ...
A pyramid of biomass shows the relationship between biomass and trophic level by quantifying the biomass present at each trophic level of an ecological community at a particular time. It is a graphical representation of biomass (total amount of living or organic matter in an ecosystem) present in unit area in different trophic levels.
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.
A hierarchical classification system that, in its upper levels, defines ecosystems by their convergent ecological functions (biomes) and, in its lower levels, distinguishes ecosystems with contrasting assemblages of species engaged in those functions. Within the IUCN Ecosystem Typology these are Level 3 "functional groups". [23] "trophic savannas"
Biologists can study life at multiple levels of organization, [1] from the molecular biology of a cell to the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, and the evolution of populations. [ 1 ] [ 6 ] Hence, there are multiple subdisciplines within biology , each defined by the nature of their research questions and the tools that they use.