Ecosystem

Ecosystem comprises of a biological community that resides in some surroundings and also the chemical or physical factors that build up its abiotic environment. Several examples of ecosystem are there as a grassland, a pond, an estuary and a forest where the borders are not fixed, however sometimes may seem obvious like shoreline of a pond.

Ecology

Ecosystem ecology can be taken as integrated study of abiotic and biotic elements of ecosystem and also their communications within frame. This is basically a significant art of science which studies the working mechanism of several ecosystems and makes associations with their elements like animals, plant, soil, bedrock and chemicals.

Major Elements

Ecosystem is basically comprised of two components as abiotic and biotic. In abiotic component, several elements are included like water chemistry or soil, moisture or water, temperature, sunlight and precipitation. In biotic section, the major elements are detritivores, omnivores, carnivores, herbivores and primary producers. Frequently, biological communities incorporate some functional groups that incorporate the organisms performing similar functions in ecosystem like primary producers and photosynthesis plants make a functional group.

Process in ecosystems

Energy enters in the ecosystems in several forms such as photons and light energy and is converted into chemical energy by some cellular process like respiration and photosynthesis. This energy is then transformed into heat energy and dissipated. It means that whole energy is lost as heat in the ecosystem and can not be recycled. Other elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon enter in ecosystem in several ways. Plants get these elements from soil, water or from the neighboring environment. Animals obtain these elements form physical environment directly, usually by consuming other organisms, however, after sometime because of decomposition or excretion, these are returned to ecosystem in a non-living state. This process is also known as mineralization which is completed by bacteria. During the process, these elements are not lost or destroyed, thus earth works like a closed system for elements.

The overall function of eco system is controlled by two processes as bottom up and top down controls. These processes are continuously operating in the ecosystem at all times, so for understanding the whole system, one must have consider the importance of each and every phase included.