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Ecosystem classifications are specific kinds of ecological classifications that consider all four elements of the definition of ecosystems: a biotic component, an abiotic complex, the interactions between and within them, and the physical space they occupy. Biotic factors of the ecosystem are living things; such as plants, animals, and bacteria ...
This stream operating together with its environment can be thought of as forming a river ecosystem. River ecosystems are flowing waters that drain the landscape, and include the biotic (living) interactions amongst plants, animals and micro-organisms, as well as abiotic (nonliving) physical and chemical interactions of its many parts.
The biotic environment includes genes, cells, organisms, members of the same species (conspecifics) and other species that share a habitat. [172] The distinction between external and internal environments, however, is an abstraction parsing life and environment into units or facts that are inseparable in reality.
Eugene Odum, one of the founders of the science of ecology, stated: "Any unit that includes all of the organisms (i.e.: the "community") in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic structure, biotic diversity, and material cycles (i.e.: exchange of materials between living ...
Again, these changes are important in understanding the effects of invasive species in a new habitat. The ability of a new species to change an environments abiotic and biotic factors can make a previously habitable environment for a species uninhabitable. The extinction of this species can further change the biotic factors of an environment.
Ecosystem services are ecologically mediated functional processes essential to sustaining healthy human societies. [6] Water provision and filtration, production of biomass in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries, and removal of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere are examples of ecosystem services essential to public health and economic opportunity.
These differences in abiotic components alter the species present by creating boundaries of what species can survive within the environment and influencing competition between two species. Abiotic factors such as salinity can give one species a competitive advantage over another, creating pressures that lead to speciation and alteration of a ...
Biotic: Resources that originate from the biosphere and have life such as flora and fauna, fisheries, livestock, etc. Fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum are also included in this category because they are formed from decayed organic matter. Abiotic: Resources that originate from non-living and inorganic material.