Ecosystem

{
  "id": "MLC-T-ENV-008926",
  "term": "Ecosystem",
  "field": "Environment",
  "definition": "1. The interacting synergism of all living organisms in a particular environment; every plant, insect, aquatic animal, bird, or land species that forms a complex web of interdependency. An action taken at any level in the food chain, use of a pesticide for example, has a potential domino effect on every other occupant of that system.\n\n2. A biotic community and its abiotic environment, considered together as a unit. Ecosystems are characterized by a flow of energy that leads to trophic structure and material cycling.\n\n3. The biotic community and abiotic environment within a specified location and time, including the chemical, physical, and biological relationships among the biotic and abiotic components.\n\n4. A community of plants and animals, like a neighborhood.\n\n5. An interactive system that includes the organisms of a natural community association together with their abiotic physical, chemical, and geochemical environment.\n\n6. The interacting system of a biological community and its non-living environment.\n\n7. A natural unit formed by the interaction of a community of plants and animals with the environment in which they live. All of the elements of an ecosystem interact with each other in some way, depending on each other directly or indirectly.\n\n8. All living things and nonliving things in an area, as well as the interactions between them.\n\n9. A biological community together with the physical and chemical environment with which it interacts.\n\n10. A specialized community, including all the component organisms, that forms an interacting system; for example, a marsh, a shoreline, a forest.\n\n11. The interacting system of a biological community and its non-living environmental surroundings.\n\n12. A natural community of plants, animals, and other living organisms and the physical environment in which they live and interact.\n\n13. The sum of all the living plants and animals, their interactions, and the physical components in a particular area.\n\n14. A community of plants and animals interacting with each other and their physical/chemical environment.\n\n15. Any natural unit or entity including living and non-living parts that interact to produce a stable system through cyclic exchange of materials.\n\n16. The complex of a living community and its physical and chemical environment, functioning together as a unit in nature, with some inherent stability.\n\n17. The complex system of plant, animal, fungal, and microorganism communities and their associated non-living environment interacting as an ecological unit. Ecosystems have no fixed boundaries; instead their parameters are set to the scientific, management, or policy question being examined. Depending upon the purpose of analysis, a single lake, a watershed, or an entire region could be considered an ecosystem.\n\n18. The biotic community and its abiotic environment (Krebs 1978) within a specified location in space and time (added by RAF 1992). \"The interacting system of a biological community and its non-living environmental surroundings\" (EPA 1992, 10).\n\n19. The interacting system of a biological community and its environmental surroundings.\n\n20. The interacting system of a particular biological community and its non-living environmental surroundings, or a class of such systems (e.g., forests or wetlands).\n\n21. Interacting system of a particular biological community and its non-living environmental surroundings, or a class of such systems (e.g., forests or wetlands).\n\n22. Biological community consisting of all the living organisms (including humans) in a particular area and the non-living environmental surroundings, such as air, water, and mineral soil, with which the organisms interact.\n\n23. Natural unit formed by the interaction of a community of plants and animals with the environment in which they live. All of the elements of an ecosystem interact with each other in some way, depending on each other directly or indirectly.\n\n24. The biotic community and abiotic environment within a specified location in space and time.\n\n25. A network of interactions between biological communities and the associated physical environment.",
  "subject": "Water",
  "references": [
    "Environmental Issues Terms & Acronyms; Pesticides Glossary",
    "Nearshore Terrestrial Ecosystems Glossary",
    "Waste and Cleanup Risk Assessment Glossary",
    "Estuaries Glossary",
    "Sediment Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) Glossary",
    "Aquatic Biodiversity Glossary",
    "Chesapeake Bay Glossary",
    "Acid Rain Glossary",
    "Urban Watershed Management Research Terminology",
    "Superfund for Students and Teachers Glossary",
    "Terms of Environment",
    "Student's Guide to Global Climate Change",
    "Ecological Risk Assessment Glossary of Terms",
    "Natural Landscaping Glossary",
    "Glossary of Climate Change Terms",
    "Lake Erie Lakewide Management Plan (LaMP) Glossary",
    "Greenhouse Gas Emissions",
    "Environmental Modeling and Assessment Program (EMAP) Master Glossary",
    "I-BEAM Glossary of Terms",
    "Report on the Environment (ROE) Glossary",
    "ROE Glossary",
    "NSTEPS Online Glossary of Terms; N-STEPS Online Glossary of Terms",
    "NPS Agriculture Glossary; Nonpoint Pollution Source from Agriculture Glossary"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/environment/ecosystem/"
}