The Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. These components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. As ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can come in any size.

It encompasses all the parts of a living environment, including the plants and animals, AND the nonliving components, such as water, air and the Sun’s energy. A ponds ecosystem begins with water as the base.                                       

Features:

At its simplest, an ecosystem consists of several species—at least one species that produces its own food from inorganic compounds in its environment (producer), one species which gets its energy and nutrients by feeding on producer (consumer) or other organisms or their remains, and one species that decomposes the wastes of other species (decomposer)—plus a fluid medium (air, water, or both). What is common to all ecosystems is not physical structure—size, shape, variations of borders—but the existence of the processes—the flow of energy and the cycling of chemical elements.

No matter how different two ecosystems may appear, as systems they function in very much the same way.

Components of an Ecosystem

ABIOTIC COMPONENTS	BIOTIC COMPONENTS
Sunlight	Primary producers
Temperature	Herbivores
Precipitation	Carnivores
Water or moisture	Omnivores
Soil or water chemistry (e.g., P, N)	Detritivores Decomposers
etc.	etc.
All of these vary over space/time