What is an ecosystem for children

The ecosystem concept is really important to understand the functioning of our natural environment. The definition of children’s ecosystem, explained in a very simple way, is that it is a Nature place formed by a determined or concrete space and the beings that inhabit it.

It could be said then, that these systems are formed by two main elements:

• Living organisms (beings or biotic factors): They are all those beings alive that inhabit a medium, whether microorganisms, vegetables, fish, birds or any animal, such as us, humans.
• The physical space (Abiotic elements or factors): They constitute the physical environment, which is formed by components such as energy, heat, light, air, minerals, water availability and soils. These abiotic factors, despite not having life for themselves, are those that condition the life of biotic organisms, in addition to making them develop with character characteristics to the environment in which they are.

Obviously, each ecosystem has its characteristics, its climate, humidity, water and food availability, etc. and the organisms that live there live with them. It should be mentioned that ecosystems can have a wide variety of sizes And they are present in all of us, from in a temporary pond produced by the rain, even in the Amazon jungle of South America or the great desert of the Sahara.

We recommend you also read this other article about how an ecosystem works to learn more details. Next, there is a simple way, there is a Definition for children about the main types of ecosystems: Terrestrial, aquatic and mixed.

After explaining what an ecosystem is in summary and in a simple way, we see that these are the main types of natural ecosystems:

Terrestrial ecosystems

Are those in which living beings living on the ground and subsoil. Many of them are places that we know or have seen many times, such as forests, jungles, deserts, meadows, tundra or savanna. The organisms that inhabit them have developed very varied physical peculiarities with each other, since there are a lot of factors that condition them more or less based on their location.

Terrestrial ecosystems are distributed throughout the world, obviously on land or near it, and encompass a wide variety of species. Even being one of the most diverse biologically diverse habitats, it depends on many elements, mainly the availability of water and light, climate and altitude and latitude.

Aquatic ecosystems

Aquatic ecosystems are those places where living components develop their water activitieseither salted as in seas and oceans or sweet as in rivers and lakes.

As organisms that have developed in this type of systems are in permanent contact with water, their physical peculiarities are not as varied as in terrestrial ecosystems, but they share many characteristics adapted for the aqueous environment.

These types of ecosystem are present in a large part of our planetsince water covers about 70 % of the earth’s surface. This type of habitats are richer than we believe, since, even though light, oxygen or other parameters are more limited, they are nothing more than factors that produce an adaptation and at the same time diversification of a large number of species.

Mixed ecosystems

They are places where living beings live in intermediate areas and have characteristics from the two types of ecosystems explained above. A good example are the coasts and wetlands.

They are usually considered as a transition zone, that is, it is not permanent. The species that live there can use for example as a place where to put their eggs or to reproduce. Know more about what a mixed ecosystem is in this other Ecology Verde article.

In an ecosystem there is a lot of organisms with many different functions. They establish relationships between them to different levels, either between beings of the same species or between several (below you can see an image of the flow of energy in ecosystems or, what is the same, the trophic pyramid, which relates living beings according to food, life cycles and other factors to take into account in the development of ecosystems). That is why individuals living in these ecosystems can be classified into 3 categories of organisms in ecosystems following.

Producers

They are autotrophic organisms, that is, they are capable of generating your own food from simple substances with the help of sunlight. They are the basis of the food chain.

Producers in terrestrial systems are vegetation, that is, plants, and in aquatic systems are algae and some types of bacteria such as cyanobacteria. Here you can learn more about producing organisms: what are and examples.

Consumers

These are heterotrophic organisms, which means that they have no capacity to manufacture their own food, so feed on other beings. They can be classified as:

• Primary or herbivorous consumers: Its food is based on producing organisms. Examples: Saltamontes, cows, rabbits, horses, etc. Here we tell you more about primary consumers.
• Secondary or carnivorous consumers: Its food is based on herbivorous beings. Examples: cats, owls, frogs, etc. In this other post you will see information about secondary consumers.
• Tertiary and quaternary or supercarnivorous consumers: They feed on herbivorous and carnivorous organisms and barely have predators. Examples: sharks, eagles, seals, hyenas, etc. In these links you can learn more about tertiary consumers and about quaternary consumers.

Decomponers

These are organisms that They feed on decomposition organic matter from other living beings, such as dry leaves, animal corpses, dead tree trunks or excrement. Some examples of decomposing organisms are fungi and bacteria.

If you want to read more articles similar to What is an ecosystem for childrenwe recommend that you enter our category of ecosystems.