Understanding The Aquatic Ecosystem

There are two main types of aquatic ecosystems and that’s marine ecosystem which is a salt water world and then a freshwater ecosystem which happens in more rivers, lakes and streams outside of the ocean. Basically an ecosystem is a very easy thing to explain it’s where you have a food chain of animals and organisms that must balance each other out to complete a life cycle. The aquatic ecosystem start at the bottom and work their way up when we are talking about a marine ecosystem the smallest creatures in the ocean are plankton which float around pretty much helplessly and at the mercy of the ocean currents. The plankton play a pivotal role in affording the larger creatures sustaining life and to become food for the larger creatures.

When the larger creatures die off and they fall to the bottom of the ocean floor they then become food and sustenance for the smaller creatures who they had preyed on through their lives including the plankton. It’s a very delicate system that can be thrown off by not only natural aspects like foreign creatures setting into the system and devouring up species of animals that are needed for other species to survive causing an under population or an over population of one thing or another. It can also be man-made issues which come into play in an aquatic ecosystem like oil spills or toxic waste dumping into rivers or streams which causes specific deaths to overwhelm just like in nature and if you wipe out just one aspect of an ecosystem then you can potentially throw off the balance of the entire system which is why conservation efforts are so popular because those people know the seriousness of the issues regarding the aquatic ecosystems.

The functions of aquatic ecosystems is really important to the environment because of the things that are positive that come out of them like recycling nutrients from the water itself, or purifying water and the most important thing is that it provides real habitats for wild life that call these places home. The wild life that breed, live and function in these habitats are very important to the rest of the ecosystems of the world as well which is something that most people do not give any consideration to. Now, that you’ve got the knowledge to understand that our aquatic ecosystems effect everything from the air we breathe, and the water we drink all the way up to the food we eat every single day. Without proper care of aquatic ecosystems the world as we know it would fade away into the blackness.

Understanding the functions of the plants and small creatures, the larger creatures like crabs and fish, the even larger creatures like whales and sharks all depend on the same center, the same ecosystems for life, shelter, food and even for the care of their offspring. Everyone is sure to take a moment out of their day to remember that even the smallest of creatures make a huge impact in how we live every day.