Keep a Flowin'

 Ecosystems and The Biosphere 

What is an Ecosystem and Biosphere?

Ecosystems are a community of many living organisms and their nonliving environment. Ecosystems can range in size from a tiny pool of water to the largest rainforest. There are a collection of three different types of ecosystems. The first is freshwater, freshwater ecosystems are lakes, reservoirs, rivers, wetlands, and streams. “Freshwater ecosystems are interactive systems within which biotic species and their growth and adaptation, and associated biological productivity, nutrient cycling, and energy flows among inland aquatic microbial, plant, and animal communities, are integrated with their environment,” (Wetzel 2001) this ecosystem uses the vapors from saltwater ecosystems, which the salt is separated when the water turns to steam, and eventually is released as rain or snow into our freshwater systems. Of course, the following system is marine ecosystems. “Marine ecosystems are aquatic environments with high levels of dissolved salt, such as those found in or near the ocean,” (Parks 2022) this unique ecosystem uses sunlight and depth as some of the abiotic factors in its system. It also makes up 75 percent of the earth's surface.  Last but not least, is the Terrestrial ecosystem. This ecosystem is a land-based community of organisms and the interactions of living and nonliving components in a given area. There are many types of biomes in this large ecosystem, and many of those are Forests, Deserts, and Grasslands. Ecology is very important to know about, but so is parts of the biosphere.

Joke of the blog:

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day.

Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

Teach 100 men to fish, you're the single biggest threat to our ecosystem.

 

There are also four different types of cycles: Water, carbon, and nitrogen. But we are only going over three. 

The water cycle is very important to all living things due to us being made up of mostly water. processes. “The hydrosphere is the area of Earth where water movement and storage occurs: as liquid water on the surface (rivers, lakes, oceans) and beneath the surface (groundwater) or ice, (polar ice caps and glaciers), and as water vapor in the atmosphere.” The water cycle allows for minerals and nutrients to cycle back into our waterways.

The carbon cycle is just as important to us as the water cycle due to the carbon cycle is what brings us oxygen. It is the backbone of life on earth. Carbon helps keep the temperature regulated, it's in a lot of our produce and it helps produce energy. There are two sub-cycles but we aren't gonna dip down that deep. 

The nitrogen cycle is a repeating cycle of processes during which nitrogen moves through both living and non-living things. This cycle is needed because nitrogen plays an important role. Nitrogen is important for amino acids and nucleic acids. ( Nucleic acids help the body function and the amino acids help create proteins which creates the energy needed to function.) Nitrogen is a key component in our growth as well as plant growth and without it, a lot of plants would start to wither. Did you know that there is nitrogen in plant fertilizers? 

I think knowing about these things will allow people to understand why it's so important to not contaminate our waterways and our soils because as we destroy those it makes it harder to keep those cycles going in the way they need to. If any of these cycles become contaminated it will or could kill off an entire ecosystem. 

 

Fun fact:

Coral reefs are busy underwater ecosystems. Some people call them the “rainforests of the sea.” The corals look like rocks but actually are animals. They have hard calcium carbonate skeletons like clams. They form a base for lots of other organisms to live. You’ll find crabs, sea stars, worms, clams, sponges, jellies, sea turtles, and lots of fish. Coral reefs are complicated and very fragile. They are easily affected by pollution.

Freshwater ecosystem. National Geographic Society. (2022). Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/freshwater-ecosystem

NASA. (n.d.). 10 interesting things about ecosystems. NASA. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://climatekids.nasa.gov/10-things-ecosystems/

US Department of Commerce, N. O. and A. A. (2019, April 2). What is the carbon cycle? NOAA's National Ocean Service. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/carbon-cycle.html#transcript

Wetzel, R. G. (2001). Freshwater ecosystem. Freshwater Ecosystem - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/freshwater-ecosystem