POLLUTION IMPACT ON THE ECOSYSTEM

All living and non-living things (biotic element )in a given area that interact with one other, make up an ecosystem. The non-living part of an ecosystem includes water, rocks, air, light, and soil. All the different organisms that live together in an ecosystem is called a community. Each ecosystem has its own community. A terrarium community, for example, can have small animals. A desert community may have cacti, small snakes, and scorpions. A pond community can have frogs, insects, snakes, and plants, and a forest community may have rabbits, foxes and pine trees. Communities are also divided into populations. A population is composed of only one type of species. A species is a group of similar organisms; for instance, all humans belong to the same species.

An example of an ecosystem

A community works like a team. Each member of the team has its own job to do but they are all interconnected. For example, in a forest community there are different populations, such as grass, rabbits, and foxes. The rabbits eat the grass. The foxes eat the rabbits. If there were no foxes, the rabbit population would grow too quickly and there wouldn't be enough grass for all of the rabbits to eat. Then the rabbits would begin to die, and the foxes would soon die because there is nothing but grass too eat. Predators and their prey are in every community. They help to keep it balanced so that all the members can survive. Three types of team members in a community help establish balance: the Producers, the Consumers, and the Decomposers.

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        The current cycle of global warming is changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon. What will we do to slow this warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the face of the Earth as we know it—coasts, forests, farms, and snowcapped mountains—hangs in the balance.

The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole, and everywhere in between. Globally, the mercury is already up more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius), and even more in sensitive polar regions. And the effects of rising temperatures aren’t waiting for some far-flung future. They’re happening right now. Signs are appearing all over, and some of them are surprising. The heat is not only melting glaciers and sea ice, it’s also shifting precipitation patterns and setting animals on the move.

Some impacts from increasing temperatures are already happening.

• Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
• Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
• Sea level rise became faster over the last century.
• Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
• Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on average.
• Spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.

Other effects could happen later this century, if warming continues.

• Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters).

• Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
• Species that depend on one another may become out of sync. For example, plants could bloom earlier than their pollinating insects become active.
• Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall in Ethiopia, where droughts are already common, could decline by 10 percent over the next 50 years.
• Less fresh water will be available. If the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru continues to melt at its current rate, it will be gone by 2100, leaving thousands of people who rely on it for drinking water and electricity without a source of either.
• Some diseases will spread, such as malaria carried by mosquitoes.
• Ecosystems will change—some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won’t be able to move and could become extinct. Wildlife research scientist Martyn Obbard has found that since the mid-1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears have gotten considerably skinnier.  Polar bear biologist Ian Stirling has found a similar pattern in Hudson Bay.  He fears that if sea ice disappears, the polar bears will as well.

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