home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
/
Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
/
E
/
Ecosystem
/
INFOTEXT
< prev
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-09-02
|
891b
|
23 lines
In ecology, an integrated unit consisting of
the community of living organisms and the
physical environment in a particular area.
The relationships among species in an
ecosystem are usually complex and finely
balanced, and removal of any one species may
be disastrous. The removal of a major
predator, for example, can result in the
destruction of the ecosystem through
overgrazing by herbivores. Energy and
nutrients pass through organisms in an
ecosystem in a particular sequence (see food
chain): energy is captured through
photosynthesis, and nutrients are taken up
from the soil or water by plants; both are
passed to herbivores that eat the plants and
then to carnivores that feed on herbivores.
These nutrients are returned to the soil
through the decomposition of excrement and
dead organisms, thus completing a cycle that
is crucial to the stabililty and survival of
the ecosystem.