Final Nonfiction Project - Popular Science Article

Crash Course in Ecology

It might sound weird, but your school is an ecosystem. No, really, not just in a metaphorical way: your school is a scientific ecosystem. Sound strange? Well, maybe it is. But let me explain what an ecosystem is first. According to Merriam-Webster, an ecosystem is a biological community of organisms and their interactions with their environment (“Ecosystem”). If you apply that definition to a school, it’s easier to see the student body as a community of organisms interacting within the school’s environment. I’m particularly interested in college ecosystems at the moment, because as a junior, I know that I’ll be applying to colleges this coming summer and fall. I’ve been thinking a lot about what type of college environment I want, and I’ve realized that a big part of that decision revolves around my intended major. I’ve narrowed down my possible career interests to something in biology, environmental science, or ecology, but I immediately realized that I knew next to nothing about ecology. I decided to immerse myself in the field and record my findings to share with other curious-minded high school readers, so let’s begin!  

Merriam-Webster’s definition for ecology reads “a branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments” (“Ecology”). At its core, ecology aims to understand the causes behind events occuring in our world among organisms (and by the way, an organism just refers to anything alive). But this makes ecology an extremely broad topic. Studying the relationships among every living thing seems impossible (according to National Geographic, there are an estimated 8.7 million species of plants and animals alive today, most of which are still undiscovered), but there are numerous branches of ecology so it’s not too overwhelming for ecologists (“Biodiversity”). 

To name just a few of these branches, there’s landscape ecology, population ecology, and behavioral ecology. Landscape ecologists study large amounts of land at a time, observing the patterns and behaviors visible there among organisms (“Types of Ecology”). Population ecology focuses on keeping track of the number of a certain species to study how its population changes over time, maybe due to a rise or decrease of a food supply. Behavioral ecology focuses on the ways that organisms adapt to changes in their habitat. It’s easy to see how diverse branches of ecology differ considerably from one another. 

Another major part of ecology is the grouping of sets of ecosystems, or biomes. Each biome has many different smaller ecosystems within it, but all these ecosystems share defining characteristics with their neighboring ecosystems in the biome. A biome is a climatically controlled set of  ecosystems characterized by the plants and animals living there. There are plenty of subcategories of biomes that could fill up the rest of this article on their own, but NASA identifies seven main categories of terrestrial biomes: rainforest, grassland, coniferous forest, temperate deciduous forest, desert, tundra, and shrubland (“Mission: Biomes”). 

To fully understand the complexity of life on earth shown through the biomes, you first need to understand what each biome looks like. Let’s start with rainforests, an extremely well-known biome. A rainforest is characterized by its warm temperatures year-round–it never frosts in a rainforest! Not surprisingly, rainforests receive the most rain per year out of any biome (“Rainforest”). Rainforests are very abundant in plants and animals, and contain more species than all the other biomes combined. Some common plants you might see in a rainforest would be vines, orchids, or ferns. Unfortunately, rainforests are most often talked about with regards to their destruction. Logging, mining, unsustainable farming, oil companies, and dams all contribute to the massive destruction of an incredibly biodiverse biome (“Why are rainforests being destroyed?”). 

Grasslands are another fairly self-explanatory biome and are composed mainly of grass. Grasslands are open, usually flat, and don’t receive much rain (“Grassland”). They are almost a global biome and can be found in every continent except Antarctica. The height of grasses abundant in a grassland biome depends on how much rain the area receives, with more rain equating to taller grass. Each year, the grasses die except for their roots, which act as a “jumping off” point for the plant at the start of a new season. Surprisingly enough, despite Illinois’ extreme flatness and abundance of prairieland, sources differ on whether or not the state is a grassland or temperate deciduous forest, since the state is right on the border of two biomes (if you’re wondering what a temperate deciduous forest biome looks like, don’t worry–we’ll get to it in a bit).

A coniferous forest is one of those hard-to-pronounce biomes, but it just refers to a forest made up of trees that produce cones (like pinecones) and needles. Coniferous forests are found in areas such as Canada and the northern parts of Asia and have lots of snow in the winter, but still experience warm summers (“Coniferous Forest”). Coniferous forests are typically located  between tundras and deciduous forests, the next biome on the list. 

Temperate deciduous forests are distinct for their seasonal variation, that is, they undergo four distinct seasons (“Temperate Deciduous Forest”). Broadleaf trees are abundant along with many types of shrubs and mosses. The spectacular colors seen in autumn as leaves fall from their branches are the result of an adaptation allowing the trees to survive the cold months of winter (otherwise, their fragile leaves along with the trees themselves would not be able to withstand this frigid season). Precipitation occurs year round in many different forms, such as rain in the warmer months, and snow in the winter (“Temperate Deciduous Forests”).  

Deserts are another easily recognizable biome with a meager average of only 10 inches of rain per year -- by far the least out of all the biomes (“Desert”). Cacti and short plants dominate the landscape and perennial plants must resort to rotating between periods of dormancy and “reawakening” when water is finally available. Due to the extremely dry air, heat escapes from deserts quickly at night, so temperature ranges can be drastically different from day to night. There are several types of deserts, and they can range from some of the hottest places on earth (like the Sahara Desert) to one of the coldest (like Antarctica) (“Desert Biome”). 

The tundra biome is the coldest biome and can be found only on opposite ends of the earth, far from the equator, in regions like Antarctica and the tips of North America. Due to the harsh temperatures (ranging from -40 degrees Fahrenheit to 64 degrees Fahrenheit), there are almost no trees, and any vegetation that is able to survive is short, such as mosses and shrubs. Similar to deserts, tundras don’t receive much precipitation, but this biome is defined by its permafrost -- a layer of permanently frozen ground due to the cold temperatures (“Tundra”).

Shrublands, the last biome, are made up of short trees, grasses, herbs, and of course, shrubs. Found near deserts and grasslands, this biome has similar ecological traits, but is distinct in its own way. Shrublands undergo a dry and wet season, and plants in this biome are usually adapted to withstand frequent fires due to lightning strikes in the dry season (“Shrubland”). Though the shrubland biome is most abundant in Africa, there are shrublands in parts of Australia and South America as well. 

At this point, I wasn’t sure where to look next. I’d read all I could about biomes (which as you now know are similar sets of ecosystems), so I decided to focus my attention on what makes up an individual ecosystem. The first thing I noticed in my research was the repeated mention of a keystone species, which is the foundation of an ecosystem. Keystone species can be predators or prey, but without them, the ecosystem would be drastically impacted. For example, the saguaro cactus is a keystone species, because desert birds rely on it for nesting and its fruit offers valuable nutrition during drier parts of the year. 

In many cases, the role of the keystone species is underappreciated until the species is gone from the habitat (“Keystone Species”). In one experiment, starfish were observed in the wild and then removed from the habitat. When the starfish were removed, mussels (previously eaten by the starfish) crowded out other species and resulted in a drastic loss in biodiversity, emphasizing the importance of starfish. On the flip side, invasive species threaten biodiversity, and while the term is commonly misused, a bit of background information should clear up any misperceptions. 

A species can fall into one of three categories: native, non-native, and invasive. A native species is one that’s meant to be in a given habitat; in other words humans didn’t intervene in any way to bring this species to the region; it’s existence in that habitat is natural and a result of time and evolution. The beautiful coneflowers commonly seen in gardens are excellent examples of flowers native to the state of Illinois. The second category of species is non-native. A non-native species simply means a species that has been introduced to an area by humans (either purposely or accidentally); a non-native species wasn’t originally from the location it’s currently in now, but this doesn’t mean the species is harmful. Most foods grown in home gardens are non-native and they pose no threat to the ecosystem around them. 

The final category of species, invasive species, are any “non-native species that causes harm to the environment, economy, or human, animal, or plant health” (“Invasive and Non-Native Species”). One commonly known example is the Asian carp, an umbrella term for four ferociously invasive species of carp damaging natural food chains in American rivers due to their increasing population and diet of zooplankton, the foundation in many freshwater ecosystems’ food chains (Miller). Ecologists are always trying to reduce invasive species in the wild due to their detrimental role in the ecosystem, but non-native species do not need to have such measures taken against them to prevent their spread.  

As I neared the end of my journey, I realized there was still one subject left to explore. Us. As animals, humans should be a part of the natural world, but with our massive constructions, rapid population growth, and destructive impact on our environment, there are thousands of ways we differ from our wilder companions in the animal kingdom. How does ecology apply to humans? What’s our place in the natural order? Entire books could easily be filled on this topic alone, and it’s one I hope to pursue more in the future. For now, however, I want to make one very important connection to current events. 

As I typed this article while wearing a mask to protect myself from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has rampaged over our entire globe, leaving over 5 million people dead in its wake, I couldn’t help but wonder if ecology had a connection to the pandemic. Sure enough, this broad science has a story to tell about the origins of the virus. The phrase “we’re all in this together” has become overly used during this pandemic, but it really is true. Not only we as humans, but all living things in the natural world are connected in a myriad of ways. After hearing the pandemic was caused by bats, some people decided an apt solution would be to exterminate bats, the scapegoat of many diseases (Sala 235). However, bats have so many beneficial qualities as well, and though we are far from fully understanding how the natural world works, we do know that it functions best without our pollution and habitat destruction. Researchers have proven animals like bats tend to shed more viruses when stressed from habitat loss, implying that we have brought this pandemic upon ourselves. By continuing to encroach on wild ecosystems, we leave ourselves vulnerable to more novel coronaviruses that will surely come in the future if we do not learn to protect the natural habitats we have left in the world.

There are so many more topics I wish I could have explored more deeply, such as energy transfer, the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the role ecologists play in studying topics such as climate change or endangered species, etc. Ecology is a fascinating and extremely broad discipline of study that truly captivated me as I researched it in-depth for the first time in my life. Throughout this journey, I tried to remain as open as possible to each aspect of ecology that I explored. The study has given me plenty to mull over, even in the way I view myself as one organism among billions. Though I still can’t decide on  a college major, I’ve learned a lot and I hope you have as well! 

Works Cited

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