PHILIPPINE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY
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2418
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HANDOUT #3
People and the Earth Ecosystem
Ecosystem and its Major Components

Ecosystem Definition
The simplest definition of an ecosystem is that it is a community or group of living
organisms that live in and interact with each other in a specific environment.
For instance, tropical forests are ecosystems made up of living beings such as trees,
plants, animals, insects and microorganisms that are in constant interaction
between themselves and that are affected by other physical (sun, temperature) or
chemical (oxygen or nutrients) components.

Ecosystem Scientific Definition

An ecosystem is the basic unit of the field of the scientific study of nature.
According to this discipline, an ecosystem is a physically defined environment,
made up of two inseparable components:
■ The biotope (abiotic): a particular physical environment with specific
physical characteristics such as the climate, temperature, humidity,
concentration of nutrients or pH.
■ The biocenosis (biotic): a set of living organisms such as animals, plants or
microorganisms, that are in constant interaction and are, therefore, in a
situation of interdependence.

Why Is Preserving Ecosystems Important?

Like all other living beings, humans are dependent on natural ecosystem services
to survive. We need it to get the food we eat, the water we drink and to transform
raw materials into our everyday products. So in order to keep our living conditions,
it’s truly important that we preserve natural ecosystems.
For example, the agriculture that provides our food depends on the characteristics
of a specific ecosystem. Cereals or vegetables grow only under certain conditions
of temperature and humidity. They also need certain natural processes, such as
pollination, to take place. If we change these characteristics too intensely, there is
the risk that we aren’t able to produce what we produce today, or at least not in the
same way. That’s why there are some agricultural techniques that understand and
manage food production (such as agroforestry, permaculture or regenerative
agriculture) and the wider impacts of using herbicides, pesticides, exhausting
nearby water sources or betting on different types of trees that make ecosystems
more resilient.

How Do Humans Affect Ecosystems? The Human Impact On Ecosystems

Human activities are having a negative impact on ecosystems. In fact, according to
the famous Millennium Ecosystems Assessment, at the beginning of the 20th
century, human activities have changed ecosystems more rapidly than ever before.
Humaking has been demanding for food, water, food, timber, and other materials
like crazy. And all these demands have been highly contributing to deforestation
(to grow more crops), the loss of natural pollination (bees are disappearing), water
pollution (from animal excreta and pesticides to plastic), soil exploitation (due to
intensive agriculture), overfishing and huge biodiversity loss.

Why Are Humans Affecting Ecosystems?

There is no straight-forward answer to this question. But human activities have

impacts that aren’t instantaneously noticed. This means the visual impact of these
effects isn’t there most of the time. As well, the ecological capital is hard to
measure.
For instance, transforming land to build a hotel will have specific costs (buying the
land, construction materials, manpower) and the revenue can be predicted via
estimation of occupancy rate, price per season… But there’s no precise way to
quantify what’s the value of that park and those trees that will need to be taken
down to build it. What is its value for the environment? And for the families that
go there every day? There’s no exact way of answering this, although organizations
such as the European Parliament are trying to shed light on this issue.

Apart from the need to use ecosystem services at a large scale to keep the economy
rolling, there’s also another very discussed theory on this issue. It says that if an
ecosystem service is common and belongs to no one in particular, humans will
exploit it until they exhaust it. This theory where individuals pursue their
individual interests is called the tragedy of the commons. Find more info about it in
our sustainable development definition.