One-species-removal Affects the Ecosystem
Scientists at the university of Wyoming and Cornell University have found that if we remove only one important species from the ecosystem, it affects the total ecosystem. Earlier scientists used to believe that the other species compensate for the loss. Prochilodus mariae, a fish, was studied by the team. This fish is native to South American rivers. It eats detritus and plays a critical role in the breakdown and transport of carbon dioxide in rivers. When this fish is killed in large numbers by fishermen, the overall river ecosystem is in danger.
Ecosystem is the complex of living organisms, their physical environment, and all their interrelationships in a particular unit of space.
An ecosystem’s abiotic (nonbiological) constituents include minerals, climate, soil, water, sunlight, and all other nonliving elements; its biotic constituents consist of all its living members. Two major forces link these constituents: the flow of energy and the cycling of nutrients. The fundamental source of energy in almost all ecosystems is radiant energy from the sun; energy and organic matter are passed along an ecosystem’s food chain. The study of ecosystems became increasingly sophisticated in the later 20th century; it is now instrumental in assessing and controlling the environmental effects of agricultural development and industrialization.
Food chain is the sequence of transfer of matter and energy from organism to organism in the form of food.
These interconnected feeding relationships intertwine locally into a food web because most organisms consume or are consumed by more than one other type of organism. Plants and other photosynthetic organisms (such as phytoplankton), which convert solar energy to food, are the primary food source. In a predator chain, a plant-eating animal is eaten by a larger animal. In a parasite chain, a smaller organism consumes part of a larger host and may itself be parasitized by even smaller organisms. In a saprophytic chain, microorganisms live on dead organic matter. Because energy, in the form of heat, is lost at each step, or trophic level, chains do not normally encompass more than four or five trophic levels.
