Ecosystems and sustainable development

With so much variation in what constitutes an ecosystem, it is useful to define the barrier of the system that is being studied. Depending on the specific interests of an ecologist, an ecosystem might be delineated as the shoreline vegetation around a lake, or perhaps the entire water body, or maybe the lake plus all the land that drains into the lake (a watershed).Ecosystems take various forms of energy and simple inorganic materials, and create relatively focused combinations of these, occurring as the total amount of biological material (the biomass) of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Solar electromagnetic energy, captured by the chlorophyll of green plants, is a common energy source of many ecosystems. The most important of the simple inorganic materials are carbon dioxide, water, and ions or small molecules containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and some other nutrients. Virtually all ecosystems (and life itself) rely on inputs of solar energy to drive the physiological processes by which biomass is synthesized from simple molecules. To carry out their various functions, ecosystems also need access to nutrients. Unlike energy, which can only flow through an ecosystem, nutrients can be utilized repeatedly. Through biogeochemical cycles, nutrients are recycled from dead biomass back into living organisms. One of the greatest challenges facing humans and their civilization is understanding the fundamentals of ecosystem organization— how they function and how they are structured. This knowledge is absolutely necessary if humans are to design systems that allow a sustainable utilization of the products and services of ecosystems. An example of a disastrous influence of humans on an ecosystem is the collapse of the cod fishery on the Grand Banks. This expanse of the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Coast of Maine and Atlantic Canada was once home to seemingly unlimited numbers of cod. However, over centuries destructive fishing practices and overfishing decimated the cod stock to the point where the species became nearly extinct. As of 2013, cod stocks have not recovered to sustainable levels.

A population comprises all the individuals of a given species in a specific area or region at a certain time. Its significance is more than that of a number of individuals because not all individuals are identical. Populations contain genetic variation within themselves and between other populations. Even fundamental genetic characteristics such as hair color or size may differ slightly from individual to individual. More importantly, not all members of the population are equal in their ability to survive and reproduce.

Ecosystems are dynamic entities composed of the biological community and the a biotic environment. An ecosystem's a biotic and biotic composition and structure is determined by the state of a number of interrelated environmental factors. Changes in any of these factors (for example: nutrient availability, temperature, light intensity, grazing intensity, and species population density) will result in dynamic changes to the nature of these systems. For example, a fire in the temperate deciduous forest completely changes the structure of that system. There are no longer any large trees, most of the mosses, herbs, and shrubs that occupy the forest floor are gone, and the nutrients that were stored in the biomass are quickly released into the soil, atmosphere and hydrologic system. After a short time of recovery, the community that was once large mature trees now becomes a community of grasses, herbaceous species, and tree seedlings.

What is an Ecosystem?

An ecosystem includes all of the living things (plants, animals and organisms) in a given area, interacting with each other, and also with their non-living environments (weather, earth, sun, soil, climate, and atmosphere). In an ecosystem, each organism has its' own niche or role to play.

Micro:

Mess:

A very large ecosystem or collection of ecosystems with similar biotic and a biotic factors such as an entire rainforest with millions of animals and trees, with many different water bodies running through them.

The Blue Marble, photographed from Apollo 17 in 1972, quickly became an icon of environmental conservation.

On September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted the "universal, integrated and transformative" 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

goals.

Scheme of sustainable

three constituent parts. (2006)

Sustainable development, or sustainability, has been described in terms of three spheres, dimensions, domains or pillars, i.e. the environment, the economy and society. The three-sphere framework was initially proposed by the economist René Passet in 1979.^] It has also been worded as "economic, environmental and social" or "ecology, economy and equity. This has been expanded by some authors to include a fourth pillar of culture, institutions or governance.