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An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem found in and around a body of water, in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms—aquatic life—that are dependent on each other and on their environment. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. [1]
Freshwater ecosystem. Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems that include the biological communities inhabiting freshwater waterbodies such as lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, springs, bogs, and wetlands. [1] They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems, which have a much higher salinity. Freshwater habitats can be ...
Temperature is an important abiotic factor in lentic ecosystems because most of the biota are poikilothermic, where internal body temperatures are defined by the surrounding system. Water can be heated or cooled through radiation at the surface and conduction to or from the air and surrounding substrate. [ 6 ]
Phosphorus has a different role in aquatic ecosystems as it is a limiting factor in the growth of phytoplankton because of generally low concentrations in the water. [13] Dissolved phosphorus is also crucial to all living things, is often very limiting to primary productivity in freshwater, and has its own distinctive ecosystem cycling. [17]
None of these is the "best" classification. 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. [41]
Because the benthic system regulates energy in aquatic ecosystems, studies have been made of the mechanisms of the benthic zone in order to better understand the ecosystem. Benthic diatoms have been used by the European Union's Water Framework Directive (WFD) to establish ecological quality ratios that determined the ecological status of lakes ...
Freshwater biology is also used to study the effects of climate change and increased human impact on both aquatic systems and wider ecosystems. [4] Freshwater organisms, vertebrates especially, appear to be at a higher extinction risk from climate change than terrestrial or marine organisms.
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.