{"id":64528,"key":"Ecosystems","title":"Ecosystems","latest":{"id":1207739,"timestamp":"2025-11-27T22:47:54Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"[[File:Greenland-sydkap hg.jpg|thumb]]\n\n'''Ecosystem''' refers to the community of living plants and animals as it interacts with its physical, chemical, meteorological and geological setting. When viewed together as a whole, an ecosystem is a complex and dynamically interacting mechanism that has specialist component parts. An ecosystem does not have a defined boundary or spatial unit and there does not need to be a specified or minimum number of species or individual organisms to form an ecosystem.<ref name=\"WICE\" /> Indeed, boundaries and components are in constant flux.<ref name=\"eoe\" />\n\nRoy Clapham first discussed the concept in 1930, in the sense of seeing both physical and biological components of the environment relating to each other as a unit.<ref name=\"WICE\">http://www.ecosystems.ws/ecosystem_concept.htm</ref> The term was further refined by Arthur Tansley, a British ecologist who first used the term in a publication.<ref name=\"WP\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem</ref>\n\nThe term \"ecosystem\" is a contraction of the terms \"ecological system\".<ref name=\"WICE\" /> It is a core concept in both the discipline of biology and the discipline of ecology.<ref name=\"eoe\">http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/152248/</ref>\n\n== Definitions of an ecosystem ==\n\nThere are varied definitions of an ecosystem. Here are some definitions of an ecosystem:\n\n* ''\"An ecosystem is a community of organisms interacting with each other and with their environment such that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6y4lJmcE-8 energy is exchanged] and system-level processes, such as the cycling of elements, emerge.\"'' From: http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/152248/\n* ''\"An ecosystem is a natural system consisting of all plants, animals and microorganisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment.\"'' From: http://www.ecosystems.ws/ecosystem_concept.htm, citing Christopherson (1997).\n* ''\"An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system.\"'' From Wikipedia, at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem\n* ''\"Ecosystem\" means a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit''. From: The Convention on Biological Diversity (1992)\n\n== Sources and Citations ==\n\n<references />\n\n{{Page data\n| license = CC-BY-SA-3.0\n| description = Ecosystems include all living things and their surroundings. Appropedia defines key terms and why these systems matter.\n}}\n\n[[Category:Nature]]\n[[Category:Environment]]\n[[Category:Ecology]]"}