Category: Ecosystem

Essay on Soils Fauna and Soil Flora !Soil supports a wide array of organisms of different body-sizes and taxonomic groups. Generally, soil organisms are classified into three major groups namely micro-fauna and micro-flora, meso-fauna or meio-fauna, and macro-fauna. image source: pasowinerealestate.com ADVERTISEMENTS: Mesoflora and macroflora because occur above the surface of soil (land-surface), therefore are ex­cluded from this discussion: 1. Microfauna: It includes animals with body size within the range of 20 µ to 200µ. It includes all Protozoa and small-sized mites, nematodes, rotifers, tradigrades and copepode Crustacea. Soil inhabiting protozoans like amoeba, ciliates, zoomastigine flagellates occur near the surface soils, while the testate forms like Thecamoeba, Euglypha and Difflugia, have a wider vertical distribu­tion.The common terrestrial polyclad is Bipalium. The nematodes such as Rhabditis, Diplogaster, Tylenchus, Heterodera, Aphelen- choides,…

Essay on the Important Types of Succession established in an Ecosystem !The first organisms to become established in an ecosystem undergoing succession are known as pioneers; the stable community that ends the succession is termed the climax community.The whole series of communities which are involved in the ecological succession at a given area, such as from grass to shrub to forest, and which terminates in a final stable climax community, is called a sere and each of the changes that take place is a seral stage, Each seral stage is a community, although temporary, with its own characteristics and it may remain for a very short time or for many years. image source: fredonia.edu ADVERTISEMENTS: Seres are sometimes classified according to the predominant force that is bringing them about. These…

Here is your Essay on the Chemical Properties of Water !Water consists primarily of a single compound, H2O. It is a universal solvent and most chemical compounds ionize readily in water and provide many radicals and considerable versatility in the rearrangement of chemical substances. image source: marisakendall.com ADVERTISEMENTS: It has following chemical properties. Solubility of Gases in Water: Most gases dissolve readily in water, most notably those that are essential for life. The concentration of any gas in water gene­rally varies between zero and a theoretical maximum or saturation. The latter is the amount of gas that can be dissolved in water when the atmosphere and the water are in equilibrium with one another.Except for waterfalls and very turbulent streams, the water in natural ecosystem is seldom in equilibrium with…

Here is your essay on Ecological Succession !As a lake fills with silt it changes gradually from a deep to a shallow lake or pond, then to a marsh, and beyond this, in some cases, to a dry-land forest. When a crop field is deserted or a forest is severely burned over, it is just like a plot of bare ground and a series of plant communities grow up there and replace one another— first annual weeds, then perennial weeds and grasses, then shrubs, and trees—until a forest ends the development. image source: fda7ed3288f75266dcf2-c3155e3c451bb708de9594bb4903715e.r46.cf2.rackcdn.com ADVERTISEMENTS: Likewise, if a landslide exposes a surface of rock in the mountains, the surface may be successively occupied by a sparse cover of lichens; a spreading moss mat; grasses, which enter and become a meadow;…

Here is your Essay for kids On Energy !Energy can be defined as the capacity to do work, whether that work be on a gross scale as raising mountains and moving air masses over continents, or on a small scale such as transmitting a nerve impulse from one cell to another. There are two kinds of energy, potential and kinetic. Potential energy is energy at rest. It is capable of and available for work. image source: lettherebeneon.com ADVERTISEMENTS: Kinetic energy is due to motion, and results in work. Work that results from the expenditure of energy can both store energy (as potential energy) and arrange or order matter without storing energy.The expenditure and storage of energy is described by two laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics called law…

Here is an Essay for kids on Pollutants !Every human society, be it rural, urban, industrial and most technologically advanced society, dispose of certain kinds of by-pro­ducts and waste products which when are injected into the bio­sphere in quantities so great that they affect the normal functioning of ecosystems and have an adverse effect on plants, animals, and man are collectively called pollutants (Smith, 1977). image source: post-gazette.com ADVERTISEMENTS: Certain common pollutants of well-developed and developing countries are following: 1. Deposited matter such as soot, smoke, tar, dust and grit. 2. Cases like sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon di­oxide, nitrogen oxide, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, fluorine, chlorine, etc. 3. Chemical compounds such as aldehydes, arsines, hydrogen fluorides, phosgenes, detergents, etc. 4. Metals like lead, iron, zinc, mercury, etc. 5 Economic poisons…

Essay on the Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Marine Environment !The marine environment of seas and oceans is large, occupy­ing 70 per cent of the earth’s surface. The volume of surface area of marine environment lighted by the sun is small in comparison to the total volume of water involved. This and the dilute solution of nutrients limit production. It is deep, in places nearly more than 6 kilometers. image source: unesco.org ADVERTISEMENTS: All the seas are interconnected by currents, domi­nated by waves, influenced by tides and characterized by saline waters. Not only the seashore and banks which are the homes of many organisms but the open ocean, many hundreds of kilometers away from land, supports plant and animal communities of great diversity and complexity. Physico-Chemical Aspects of Marine Environment: In the…

Here is your essay on Living Organisms !The smallest structural units of matter (living as well as non­living) are subatomic particles. The next larger units are atoms, each of which consists of subatomic particles. Atoms in turn form still more complex combinations called chemical compounds (mole­cules). image source: teachersofindia.org ADVERTISEMENTS: Chemical compounds are variously joined together as even more elaborate units or complexes of compounds (macromolecules). These units are representing successively higher levels of organisa­tion of matter.They form a pyramid or hierarchy, in which any given level contains all lower levels as components and is itself a component of all higher levels. For example, atoms contain sub­atomic particles as components and atoms are themselves compo­nents of molecules.All structural levels upto and including those of macromole­cules are encountered both in the…

Essay on Physico-Chemical Characteristic and Biota of Estuaries !Current and salinity, both very complex and variable, shape life in the estuary, where the environment is neither fresh-water nor salt estuarine currents result from the interaction of a one-direction si.eam flow, which varies with the season and rain fall, with oscillation ocean tides, and with wind.The salinity of estuaries varies vertically and horizontally and fluctuates amazingly between 0.5— 0.35 per cent. Due to low salinity fresh-water has a lowest density than sea water (± 1.00, as opposed to 1.03). Were there no tides in an estuary to mix fresh and salt-water, the lighter fresh-water would simply flow over the heavier sea water and dissipate in the ocean (Fig. 21.1). However, the tidal action acts as a plunger to thoroughly flush the…

Essay on Physico-Chemical, Nature of Terrestrial Ecosystems !An aquatic system is essentially a single-phase system, where water sets the tone for entire habitat. A terrestrial ecosystem, on the contrary, is a three-phase system, where the characteristics of the habitat are a function of the atmosphere and climate, the soil, and the biotic community itself. image source: greatlakesinform.org ADVERTISEMENTS: The atmosphere is the source of oxygen for animals and carbon dioxide for plants both are sufficiently common and well-mixed in the atmosphere that they are essentially never limiting. Air as a medium of support is much less buoyant than water. Thus, an organism need relatively little support to survive in water, but it needs a fairly rigid skeleton to live and move on land. Climate in a terrestrial ecosystem is much…