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Ecosystem ecology is the integrated study of living and non-living components of ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framework. This science examines how ecosystems work and relates this to their components such as chemicals , bedrock , soil , plants , and animals .
The main subdisciplines of ecology, population (or community) ecology and ecosystem ecology, exhibit a difference not only in scale but also in two contrasting paradigms in the field. The former focuses on organisms' distribution and abundance, while the latter focuses on materials and energy fluxes.
Ecosystem ecology is the "study of the interactions between organisms and their environment as an integrated system". [ 2 ] : 458 The size of ecosystems can range up to ten orders of magnitude , from the surface layers of rocks to the surface of the planet.
There has then been a move to regard such things as natural capital and ecosystems functions as goods and services. [55] [56] However, this is far from uncontroversial within ecology or ecological economics due to the potential for narrowing down values to those found in mainstream economics and the danger of merely regarding Nature as a commodity.
The origins and history of ecosystems, species, genes and genomes, and organisms, and how these have changed over time is all part of the studies of how biodiversity has evolved and how it takes place. Ecology and Evolutionary biology in North America is based on research impact determined by the top 10% of ecology programs.
Ecosystem diversity deals with the variations in ecosystems within a geographical location and its overall impact on human existence and the environment. Ecosystem diversity addresses the combined characteristics of biotic properties which are living organisms ( biodiversity ) and abiotic properties such as nonliving things like water or soil ...
A map of the Amazon rainforest ecoregions. The yellow line encloses the ecoregions per the World Wide Fund for Nature. A map of the bioregions of Canada and the US. An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm.
The connection between plant productivity and biodiversity is a significant topic in ecology, although it has been controversial for decades. Both productivity and species diversity are constricted by other variables such as climate, ecosystem type, and land use intensity. [ 24 ]