Give an example of a reasonably simple ecosystem and use this to explain what an ecosystem is?
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The usual example is that of a pond; a self-contained ecosystem.\nNow you need to do your learning and consider how the organisms depend upon one another.
30828
basicity (a starting point)
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A community is an amalgamation of living things that share an environment. The individual living beings can be plant or animal; any species; any size. What characterizes a community is sharing interaction in many ways. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs and a multitude of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the degree of adhesion within the mixture, but the definitive driver of community is that all individual subjects in the mix have something in common. This is even true in biological communities.
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In ecology, the word ecosystem is an abbreviation of the term, ecological system. Some consider this the basic unit in ecology.\n\nIn general terms an ecological system can be thought of as an assemblage of organisms (plant, animal and other living organisms—also referred to as a biotic community or biocoenosis) living together with their environment (or biotope), functioning as a loose unit. That is, a dynamic and complex whole, interacting as an "ecological unit".\n\nEarly conceptions of this unit were as a structured functional unit in equilibrium. This equilibrium was characterized by energy and matter flows between its constituent elements. Others considered this vision limited, and preferred to understand an ecosystem in terms of cybernetics. From this view an ecological system is not a structured functional unit in equilibrium, but a functional organisation at dynamic equilibrium, or what was also called steady state. This branch of ecology that gave rise to this view has become known as Systems Ecology. Steady state is understood as the phase of an ecological systems evolution when the organisms are "balanced" with each other and their environment. This balance is achieved through various types of symbiosis, such as predation, parasitism, mutualism, commensalism, competition, and amensalism. Introduction of new elements, whether abiotic or biotic, into an ecosystem tend to have a disruptive effect. In some cases, this can lead to ecological collapse and the death of many native species. The abstract notion of ecological health attempts to measure the robustness and recovery capacity for an ecosystem. That is, how far the ecosystem is away from steady state.\n\nThe size and scale of an ecosystem can vary widely. It may be a whole forest, as well as a small pond, or even the geobiosphere itself. Different ecosystems are often separated by geographical barriers, like deserts, mountains or oceans, or are isolated otherwise, like lakes or rivers. As these borders are never rigid, ecosystems tend to blend into each other. As a result, the whole earth can be seen as a single ecosystem, or a lake can be divided into several ecosystems, depending on the scale used.
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An ecological niche is not a "place" or a "site" in space, although the 'niche metaphor' may lead us to think of it that way (because a 'niche' is a hollow where things fit).\nIn short, the ecological niche is every function and relationship that links a particular species to all its environment (which includes both other living beings and  abiotic, or non-living, factors). You cannot define an ecological niche without the species, or define the species without its niche, because the niche arises from the interaction between the individuals (their 'inside' processes) and their environment (the 'outside'). \nIn order to describe the niche, you need to enumerate all these relationships: where the species lives, at what times it is active, and how its activities change, what does it eat and what feeds upon it (trophic relationships), what other living beings interact with it (competition, parasitism, cooperation, symbiosis, etc), what are its tolerance ranges for environmental factors (temperature, humidity, precipitations, sunlight, etc)... everything that the species represents from an ecological viewpoint. \nThe ecological niche can be visualized on the basis of Hutchinson's idea of a multidimensional niche. \nPicture this: \nYou make a graph showing the temperature tolerance range for a given species, and it will look like this:\nhttp://www.bact.wisc.edu/Microtextbook/images/textbook/growth/temp_curve.gif\nThat's one ecological factor.\n\nNow we add a second factor, in this case, moisture:\nhttp://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/images/niche.gif\nWe have a 2-dimensional graph.\n\nIf we consider a third ecological factor, we get a 3-D graph. \nWhen more ecological factors are included, the representation becomes an hypervolume and cannot be represented in a simple graph.\n\nNow, back to the spruce beetle. This species (Dendroctonus rufipennis) is responsible for extensive damage to Northern Hemisphere forests. I hope the above explanation has made it clear than a forest is not an ecological niche. The forest is a habitat, but the beetle lives in a subdivision of this habitat that constitutes its specific microhabitat. The niche includes this microhabitat, but also what the beetle eats, its predators, symbionts, parasites, its temperature tolerance ranges, the particular species of trees where it breeds and feeds, etc. You can find that information here:\nhttp://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/sprucebeetle/sprucebeetle.htm\nhttp://www.srd.gov.ab.ca/forests/health/i_sprucebeetle.html\n\nTake into account that this beetle, as most insects, has indirect development. That means that the requirements of the larva, pupa and adult will probably be different and each life stage will have its own niche.\n\nI hope this helps!
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Animals, plants, and organisms are biotic. Rocks and other inanimate objects are abiotic.
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http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/rainforest.htm
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Diversity of environment, also called biodiversity, relates to the number of different species of flora and fauna in the environment. Biodiversity is important not because more species looks pretty, but because more biodiversity is healthier for the ecosystem, specifically the food chain. Consider a simple food chain that includes grass, rabbits, and coyotes. If all the rabbits die from disease, the coyotes are hopeless. But if there were more biodiversity, coyotes may also rely on raccoons for food. Forests have good biodiversity, especially the tropical rain forests around the world.
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seems pretty straightforward, its an observation that this is a small world, and things interact, and while its good to save the forests here its also necessary to save the rainforests, the oceans, and the atmosphere everywhere.
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There are any number of examples. \n\nFor example many plant species and even entire communities have distributions controlled by soil type to the degree that it is normal to refer to sandstone communities or basalt communities.
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Instead of trying to explain it in text,\nI made a little file as an example.\nTry downloading this file.\nGood luck!
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writing an essay is my guess\nit really sucks to be u \nand ill just point out that least and most contradict each other\ngood luck on the paper with those grammer skill\nno, i am a nice person\nsomewhere in the shriveled black heart lies some sympathy\nnow back on topic:\n\n1.  ecosystems are balanced, and all species share resources with other species, and are dependent on each other because if one side eats too much, there is less food for the others, adn they die\n\n2.   an ecosystem is everything that life has anything to do with.  So, if say a human pollutes the air, a plant cannot breate, the herbivore cannot eat, adn everybody dies again\n\n3. humans recieved this most wonderful gift of travel, but the rest of the animal world hates us for it now.  what i am saying, since really nothing stops a human from adapting the habitat to fit in.  we are really quite good at fitting in.  so, natural restrictions that normally limit a species from entering, dont even trip us.  We come into hte place and take space away from others, effectively pushing species onto each other, and they compete for the things htey need even if there is not enough, they then adapt and we futher evolution\n\nin the end it is all about resources, and competition (try Darwin)\ni hope my rambling helped
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The answer to studing ecology was worded the simplest by Kofi Annan. "There is little chance of protecting the environment without a greater sense of mutual responsibility." \nThe world in which is made up ofdelicate and complicated systems, which need to be understood by everyone on one level or another. While it would seem some of it to be trivial, an informed public insures a healthier planet.
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A food web or food chain is just a representation of what would eat what.  To make one simple list animals making a connections from the prey to the consumer.
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Huh?  Please, provide examples of what you are talking about so that we can respond.
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I would do something like this:\n\n* Similarities and differences among living organisms\n(For example, the characteristics of life, cells, comparing single and multicellular organisms)\n*Homeostasis in living things\n(Basic biochemical processes, Feedback systems, Disease)\n*Genetics\n(Heredity, Genes)\n*Reproduction and development\n(Cell division, reproduction among organisms)\n*Evolution\n(Theories)\n*Ecology\n(Interaction between organisms and their environments, energy flow)\n\nThese are just a few ideas.
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explain the something very clearly