Changing Conditions, Changing Ecosystems

How do changing environmental conditions affect an ecosystem?

In this lesson, we will evaluate claims, evidence, and reasoning that stable conditions in consistent populations within an ecosystem, while changing conditions can result in a new ecosystem. 

Background Information

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms and the nonliving components of the environment. Energy flows in an ecosystem in one direction through food chains, and a food web is made up of all the food chains within a community of organisms. Food chains and food webs consist of the producers (the autotrophs of an ecosystem), the primary consumers (the herbivores and omnivores of the ecosystem), the secondary consumers (the carnivores and omnivores of the ecosystem), and the top predator. Some ecosystems have complex food webs and some do not. In ecosystems with a complex food web, herbivores and omnivores eat many different types of plants and carnivores eat many different types of animals. The consumers in this type of ecosystem are described as generalists. Ecosystems that support consumers that rely on a single food source, in contrast, have simple food webs, because the consumers are specialists.