Q1.
Can you find overlapping ecosystems in Fig. 12.6?
Answer
Yes. Fig. 12.6 shows an overlap of different terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in one landscape:
- a small river — an aquatic ecosystem;
- mountains, forest, grassland and farmland — terrestrial ecosystems;
- the farmland is a human-made ecosystem.
They do not sit in separate boxes. They meet along their edges and interact with each other at any given point — the river runs down out of the mountains, through the forest, past the grassland and along the farmland.
Why it happens: ecosystems have no walls. Water, nutrients and organisms cross from one to the next: rain falling on the mountain becomes the river; soil washed off the farm ends up in the river; a bird that nests in the forest feeds over the grassland. That is also why ecosystems can be very large or very small — a whole forest is one, and so is a single banyan tree inside it.