#6/15 What is an ecosystem?
How does planet Earth work?
Eco’ comes from the Greek word oikos which means the combination of family, household and property. Ecosystems are everything we need to live, and therefore, to play a role in maintaining planetary stability. They are the consequence of how animals behave, our culture, the environment we build for ourselves and all the other species that use it in the same way.
Ecosystems aren’t stable until there is a diversity of animals working together, a structure to live in and behaviour that maintains and protects the life support for everyone.
Plants are part of the ecosystem but they originate from a very different place. Their role is energy capture. And they are so good at it, that when land plants first evolved, they produced so much waste, it caused a mass extinction of all animal life in the ocean. That was 350 million years ago and it happened before land animals had evolved to eat the waste energy created by those plants.
Ecosystems aren’t just forests or grassland. A tree can be habitat for a bird, without being an ecosystem.
Ecosystems are the summation of all animal life, humans included. But to remain stable, ecosystems require another trait of animals, culture. It’s a survival strategy that makes the behaviour of animals relevant and long-lasting. It’s the thing that connects us to ecosystems and can make us successful as species.
