Ecosystems

thumb|upright=1.4|The Amazon rainforest alongside the [[Solimões River, a tropical rainforest. These forests are the most biodiverse and productive ecosystems in the world.]] thumb|upright=1.4|Proportion and distribution of global forest area by climatic domain, 2020

thumb|upright=1.5|Sand dunes in the [[Rub' al Khali ("Empty quarter") of Arabia]] thumb|upright=1.5|alt=A human with a group of camels in a desert|A camel shepherd near Marrakesh

thumb|upright=1.5|Schematic of photosynthesis in plants. The carbohydrates produced are stored in or used by the plant. upright=1.5|thumb|right|Composite image showing the global distribution of photosynthesis, including both oceanic phytoplankton and terrestrial [[vegetation. Dark red and blue-green indicate regions of high photosynthetic activity in the ocean and on land, respectively.]]

An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by organisms in interaction with their environment. The biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.

thumb|A tree savanna at Tarangire National Park in [[Tanzania in East Africa]] thumb|A grass savanna at Kruger National Park in [[South Africa]] A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. Four savanna forms exist; savanna woodland, where trees and shrubs form a light canopy; tree savanna, with scattered trees and shrub

ridge of rock in the sea formed by the growth and deposit of coral

specific ecosystem

thumb|Amazon rainforest biotope

surrounding of an organism or population

thumb|An artist's conception shows a terraformed Mars in four stages of development.

right|thumb|Venenivibrio stagnispumantis gains energy by oxidizing hydrogen gas.

generic forest in the tropics

bog exclusively fed by precipitation and poor in mineral salts

small group of trees

among the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems

total mass of living organisms in a given area (all species or selected species)

ecosystem in a body of water

ecosystem found only on landforms

thumb|Agroecosystem in Croton-on-Hudson, New York (state)|New York in [[Westchester County. Intercropped tomatoes, basil, peppers and eggplants.]] Agroecosystems are the ecosystems supporting the food production systems in farms and gardens. As the name implies, at the core of an agroecosystem lies the human activity of agriculture. As such they are the basic unit of study in Agroecology, and Regenerative Agriculture using ecological approaches.

ecosystem found in mountainous region

cave in Romania

organism in an ecosystem that produces biomass from inorganic compounds

area of land where plant growth may be limited

thumb|Forest tundra in Russia In physical geography, a forest-tundra is a type of terrestrial ecosystem (biome) which is transitional zone (ecotone) between tundra and forest.

sustainable management and use of nature for tackling socio-environmental challenges

sandspit in Ochakiv Raion of Mykolaiv Oblast at the Black Sea in Ukraine

subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems

thumb | right Ecotopes are the smallest ecologically distinct landscape features in a landscape mapping and classification system. As such, they represent relatively homogeneous, spatially explicit landscape functional units that are useful for stratifying landscapes into ecologically distinct features for the measurement and mapping of landscape structure, function and change.

type of deciduous broadleave forest

cave in Slovenia

ecosystem that does not exchange matter with the exterior

carbon captured by the world's coastal ocean ecosystems

type of aquatic ecosystem with flowing freshwater

type of ecosystem

causes, impact and responses to bush encroachment in different geographical regions

transition zone from an area of woodland or forest to fields or other open spaces

study of living and non-living components of ecosystems and their interactions

type of desert

process of man-made reclamation of deserts

terrestrial ecozone

planetary closed ecological system

topographic lines of vegetation arising from differential absorption of rainfall

Loss of all biotic/abiotic features in an ecosystem

ability of an ecosystem to recover from damage

Human-dominated ecosystems of the anthropocene era

wildland-ocean interface

killing and sometimes eating of potential competitors

wet zone on perimeter of peatland or bog

structure of civilization

small, dense urban forest

thumb|Quepiaco in the Atacama Desert in Chile|alt=A green wetland in the foreground with sandy dry peaks in the background on a blue sky

thumb|right|Ecotron Île-de-France main entrance at [[Saint-Pierre-lès-Nemours]] An Ecotron is an experimental instrument in ecology consisting of a controlled environment which makes it possible to simultaneously condition the environment of natural, simplified, or completely artificial ecosystems and measure the processes generated by living beings present in these ecosystems, in particular the flow of matter and energy.

The wildlife of Nigeria consists of the flora and fauna of this country in West Africa. Nigeria has a wide variety of habitats, ranging from mangrove swamps and tropical rainforest to savanna with scattered clumps of trees.

human-built, modified, or engineered niches of the Anthropocene

conservation paradigm factoring in natural and human use of resources and ecosystem services

in biology, when juvenile organisms survive to be added to a population

bio-geo-physical unit and associated social actors