Ecosystems

• Ecosystem


  Includes all the living and non-living parts in an area
• Food chain


  Shows what eats what
• Food web


  Shows lots of food chains and how they overlap
• Nutrient cycle


  1. Dead material is decomposed, releasing nutrients into the soil

  2. Nutrients are taken up from the soil by plants

  3. Plants may be eaten by consumers

  4. When plants or consumers die, nutrients are returned to the soil
• Parts of the ecosystem depend on others


  Consumers depend on producers for food and habitat
• Change to one part of an ecosystem

  Affects all other parts that depend on it
• Sutton Park is a 2,400 acre National Nature Reserve located 6 miles north of the city centre of Birmingham
• Human uses for Sutton Park

  • Recreation (e.g. walks)
  • Conservation to protect ecosystems
  • Resource (wood for fuel or timber)
• Restoration of heathlands in Sutton Park

  1. Clearing birch trees and gorse

  2. Low level intensity grazing to preserve heathland
• Tourist Management Strategies in Sutton Park

  • Providing car parks, toilets, park rangers and maintaining footpaths
  • Providing three easy-access car parks for people with disabilities
  • Preserving ancient earthworks and buildings
• Other Sustainable Management Strategies in Sutton Park

  • Allowing old trees to die and collapse naturally
  • Encouraging grazing (herd of 50 cows)
  • Maintaining ponds & lakes
  • Preserving the herd of fallow deer
  • Leaving dead wood as habitat
  • Leaving some grassy areas uncut to encourage wildlife
• Due to human management and tourism, lots of the natural woodland & heathland was destroyed for park land in Sutton Park
• Changes to grazing in Sutton Park have contributed to invasion by birch, gorse and bracken
• Lack of grazing led to birch seedlings becoming established and coverage of large areas of heathland with woodland in Sutton Park
• Sutton Park's food web


  • Complex, composed of thousands of species
  • Wide variety of native tree species
  • Shrub layer of hazel, holly, grasses, brambles, fern and bracken
  • Many primary consumers including insects, small mammals, grazing cows and 38 species of bird
  • Secondary consumers such as owls, adders and foxes
  • Over 10 lakes and ponds providing important habitats
• Human activity can have many impacts on ecosystems, and changes to one component can have serious knock-on effects