The word ecosystem it was used for the first time in 1935, by the English ecologist Arthur George Tansley. He used this term to describe a unit in which biotic components and abiotics interact with each other forming a system in balance. Got confused? So we will explain it to you in another way.
All ecosystems have biotic components and abiotic components. You biotic components are all living things that live in a particular location., While abiotic components are all physical, chemical and geological factors in the environment, such as water, light, soil, humidity, temperature, nutrients etc. We can find from small ecosystems, like a lake, to very large ecosystems like the Amazon Forest, but regardless of its size, in all ecosystems there has to be an interaction between the biotic components and the abiotic components.
For you to better understand what a ecosystem, let's take a lake as an example.
In this ecosystem, all components interact
In a lake we can find organisms capable of carrying out photosynthesis, such as plants found at the bottom and on the banks, and microscopic algae found on the surface of the water. In this lake also live snails and herbivorous fish (which only eat vegetables) that feed on the remains of plants, while other carnivorous fish (which feed on other living things) eat snails and fish. herbivores. Some birds, such as herons, which live on the lake shore, feed on fish and also on frogs that live there.
As we saw, in this lake all organisms somehow depend on each other. Snails and herbivorous fish depend on vegetation, carnivorous fish depend on snails and herbivorous fish, and birds depend as much on the fish as on the frogs that live there.
Biotic and abiotic components of the lake
But you might be wondering, what are the biotic components and abiotics from this lake? You Biotic components of this lake are the plants and all other living beings that are there. The abiotic components are:
→ Llight: necessary for plants for photosynthesis, remembering that it is from photosynthesis that plants produce oxygen;
→ Oxygen: used by fish and other organisms in the lake;
→ Water temperature: when the temperature of water increases, the oxygen dissolved in it decreases, causing the death of many organisms. This makes the water more turbid, preventing the passage of light and the consequent realization of photosynthesis by plants. As plants do not photosynthesize, oxygen is not produced and more organisms die;
→ Rocks and mud at the bottom and on the shores of the lake that serve as a hiding place for some organisms;
→ Mineral salts: dissolved in water, these salts are important for the organisms that live there.
Through the example given above, we can then define ecosystem like the set formed by living organisms and the abiotic components that act on these organisms.
By Paula Louredo
Graduated in Biology
