Forest ecosystems

What is a forest ecosystem?

At firs what is ecosystem. An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals, birds, mammals, marsupials, amphibians, insects, moss, fungi, reptiles  and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil).

There are many example of a forest ecosystem which we can call types. The different types of forest are: tropical rainforest, mediterranean, coniferous, and temperate forest, tropical, montane, and plantation forest.

One type is the river red gum forest of south-western NSW or Australian forest ecosystem which includes moss and Murray’s skink.

Non-living things can be called “Abiotic” and living organisms are often called “Biotic”.

What role do organisms play in a forest ecosystem?

In a forest ecosystem there are 3 types of organisms. Herbivores -herbivores are animals that only eat plants. Camivores- camivores are animals that only eat meat. Omnivores – omnivores are animals that eat both plants and meat.

Food webs and food chains

A community of organisms which live in a forest ecosystem are connected with each other and this relationship is food web. Food web consist of similar food chains. For example animals cannot convert sunlight to energy, so are dependent on the plants and trees to do this through the process of photosynthesis. In photosynthesis, sunlight energy is converted to simple sugars in plants, the type of organisms known as the ‘producers’. Also there is another type which called ‘predators’, that is animals that hunt and prey on smaller animals for a source of food. For example Tailed Eagle is a predator to the Tawny Frogmouth Owl, its ‘prey’.