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Ecosystems: Components, Energy flow, and Matter Recycling

"If the earth were an apple..."

Although this topic has many facets and a thorough understanding of ecosystems reaches far beyond these pages (for further exploration use links provided), there are some important aspects that  students need to understand when using the TIES website.

Ecologists focus on trying to understand the interactions between organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biosphere. Organisms make up populations, which make up communities, which make up ecosystems, which make up a biosphere. The earth itself is made up of life-support systems, or spherical layers called 1)the atmosphere - a thin layer of air around the planet, with the inner most layer called the troposphere and the outer layer called the stratosphere; 2) the hydrosphere - consisting of the earth's water and ice; 3) the lithosphere - is the earth's crust and upper mantle (containing non-renewable fossil fuels and minerals as well as potentially renewable soil chemicals needed for plant and animal life); and, 4) the biosphere - the portion of the earth in which living (biotic) organisms exist and interact with one another and with the nonliving (abiotic) environment. The biosphere includes the hydrosphere, lower atmosphere, and upper lithosphere, reaching from the deepest ocean floor (20 kilometers below sea level) to the tops of the highest mountains (8,800 meters). If the earth were an apple, the biosphere would be no thicker than the apple's skin.  The goal of ecology is to understand the interactions of air, water, soil and organisms within this thin, life-supporting global skin that surrounds the earth.