Term 3 Science Ecosystems around the world

• Nain Singh Rawat


  Indian explorer who surveyed the Himalayas and a large length of the Brahmaputra River
• Nain Singh Rawat's data was seen as valuable by the RGS (Royal Geographical Society in London) and PGS (Paris Geographical Society)
• Daintree Forest


  One of the oldest ecosystems on the planet (Estimate: 189 million years old)
• Alexander Von Humboldt


  German explorer who traveled a lot and saw that more types of animals and plants lived in warmer places, which led him to think about habitats around the world (1769-1859)
• Ecosystem


  A group of living and nonliving things that work together in nature
• All the living things in an ecosystem react with the non-living parts
• An ecosystem is a group of living and nonliving things that work together in nature
• Producer


  An organism that produces food at the beginning of a food chain (usually a plant)
• Prey


  An animal that is eaten or falls prey to a predator
• Predator


  An animal that feeds on preys or another animal
• Omnivore


  An animal that eats both plants and other animals
• Carnivore


  An animal that only eats other animals
• Herbivore


  An animal that only eats plants
• Biodiversity

  A term used to describe the number and variety of species in an ecosystem
• Environment

  The environment is where living things exist and how they're connected through nutrients and energy. An ecosystem has various habitats where different organisms live
• Community


  All living organisms that live in a habitat
• Habitat


  A place where a plant, animal or microbe lives
• Biogeographical realms

  Regions covering large land and ocean areas, based on where songbirds such as sparrows are found
• Philip Sclater, an English biologist, studied where songbirds, such as sparrows, lived globally and divided the Earth into biogeographical realms
• Alfred Russel Wallace, a biologist from Wales, discovered that other animals he observed also fit into Sclater's system of realms
• Realms


  Concept that evolved
• Karl Möbius


  • German zoologist who studied oyster banks along the German coastline to understand how they could be farmed
  • His research showed how living things interact within their communities
• Ecology


  Term invented by German biologist Ernst Haeckel in the 1860s to describe how animals, plants, and the environment, including weather and soil, interact with each other
• The study of living things in their surroundings became a science, and the detailed study of ecosystems started
• The tradition of exploring and surveying continues today with ecologists worldwide
• Harry Leung


  • Researching endangered amphibians in Southeast Asian ecosystems
• Hong Liu


  • Conservation ecologist studying plants globally to find those at risk of extinction
  • Focuses on ways to conserve them in ecosystems across India, China, Mexico, and North America
• Consumer


  An animal that eats plants, other animals or both
• Primary consumer


  An animal that eats plants (This may be an herbivore or omnivore)
• Tertiary consumer


  An animal that eats secondary consumers (This may be a carnivore or omnivore)
• Quaternary consumer


  An animal that eats tertiary consumers
• Top Carnivore


  The animal at the end of the food chain
• Food chain


  A food chain shows how different organisms in an ecosystem eat each other for energy. like a sequence where one organism eats another to survive
• Food web


  A food web is a bunch of interconnected food chains that show how different organisms in an ecosystem eat each other. a big network showing who eats whom in nature
• Keystone species


  An animal or plant in an ecosystem that has a big impact on the other species. It's like a key player that helps keep the ecosystem balanced and healthy
• Rainforests are found on land around the middle of the planet
• Rainforest


  An ecosystem in which a community of plants,animals and microorganisms live in a hot wet environment inside the forest
• Plant layers in a rainforest


  • Forest floor
  • Understory
  • Canopy
  • Emergent layer
• The plant layers and the soil on the forest floor form the habitats of all the living things in the rainforest
• In the soil, Microbes decompose the dead plants and animals quickly in the warm wet conditions