Demo Session

Teacher Miss Malika

TOPIC: HUMAN INFLUENCES ON ECOSYSTEMS

 What is Ecosystem?

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms, such as plants, animals, and

microorganisms, interacting with each other and their physical environment. It encompasses
both the biological and physical components of an environment, including the interactions
between organisms and their surroundings.
Ecosystems can vary greatly in size and complexity, ranging from small ponds or forests to
entire biomes like deserts, oceans, or grasslands. They can be terrestrial (land-based), aquatic
(water-based), or a combination of both.
Ecosystems are characterized by the flow of energy and the cycling of nutrients among
organisms and their environment. They provide essential services such as oxygen production,
carbon sequestration, water purification, soil formation, and pollination, which are vital for
sustaining life on Earth.
Ecosystems can also be fragile and vulnerable to disturbances such as pollution, climate
change, habitat destruction, and invasive species. Maintaining the balance and health of
ecosystems is crucial for the well-being of both humans and the planet as a whole.

 Food supply

1. Improvements in farming:

With the advancement of technology, new methods of farming have been introduced in order
to maximize yield:

 Use of machinery - agricultural machinery can be used in the place of people. This is
quicker and more efficient, thus larger amounts of land can be farmed at once.
  Chemical fertilizers - fertilizers increase the amount of nutrients in the soil for plants,
meaning that they can grow larger and produce more fruit, increasing the yield.
 Insecticides and herbicides - these chemicals kill off unwanted insects and weed
species. This means that there is less damage done to plants and fruit lost to insects,
as well as reducing competition from other plant species.
 Selective breeding - animals and crops which produce a large yield are selectively bred
to produce a large number of organisms with a high yield.

Farmers also grow crops in a monoculture, which means that only one species of crop is grown
at once. This is done to maximize efficiency and simplicity. It does, however, have a negative
impact on the surrounding ecosystems. This is because there is a loss of biodiversity as only
one species is grown. This can harm food chains and reduce the population of some species.

2. Intensive farming:

Animals and crops can both be farmed

intensively. With crops, this means farming in
a monoculture using high amounts of
pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers to
maximize production. Animals are kept in
high densities and energy loss is limited by
restricting movement and keeping a constant
optimum temperature so that the organisms
do not waste energy to thermoregulate. High
amounts of antibiotics are also used to
prevent diseases. Intensive farming is not
sustainable, however, and damages the
environment: livestock produce large amounts of methane gas, which is a main contributor
to global warming, whilst crops take up huge amounts of space, meaning that forests and
other habitats must be destroyed to make space for farming.

3. Food shortage:

When people do not receive enough food, famine occurs. This can be caused by a variety of
factors, including natural disasters, such as drought and flooding, increasing population,
poverty, and unequal food distribution.
As the world human population increases, food production must also be increased to sustain
the population. This is a problem as more land is required to grow crops and animals, meaning
that deforestation is happening at an increasing rate, and there is also an increasing amount
of greenhouse gases emitted from animal production. Greenhouse gases cause global
warming, which is a worldwide issue that leads to increased natural disasters, such as tropical
storms and drought, as well as rising sea levels, which floods homes and decreases the
amount of habitable land.
  Habitat destruction

Many habitats are destroyed by humans to make space for other economic activities, or by
pollution from these activities. Consequently, the biodiversity of many places is decreasing.
This interrupts food chains and webs and means that more species may die because their prey
is gone.

1. Main causes of habitat destruction:

 Clearing land for farming and housing - crops, livestock

and homes all take up a large amount of space. As there
is an increasing population and demand for food, the
amount of land available for these things must be
increased by clearing habitats such as forests
(deforestation).

 Natural resource extraction - natural resources such as

wood and stone must be gathered to make different
products. Therefore many trees are cut down,
destroying forest habitats. In addition, some resource
extraction takes up a large amount of space, for
example mining, which means that the land must be
cleared first.

 Marine pollution - human activities lead to the pollution

of marine habitats. In many places, oil spills and other
waste pollutes the oceans, killing sea life. In addition,
eutrophication can occur when fertilizers from
intensively farmed fields enters waterways. This causes
a huge decrease in biodiversity as most species die.
 2. Deforestation:

Deforestation involves cutting down large amounts of trees to gather as resources for
manufacturing or to clear space for other economic activities. This has a large amount of
undesirable effects:

 Extinction - habitat destruction can lead to the extinction of species that lived there.
 Soil erosion - without roots to anchor the soil, it is carried away by the wind and heavy
rains. This d ecreases the fertility of these areas.
 Flooding - forests prevent flash flooding by slowing the time that water takes to reach
the ground. They also allow the water to be absorbed into the soil.
 Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere during photosynthesis. If there are fewer trees, less carbon dioxide is
absorbed, thus there is more in the atmosphere. This increases global warming.

 Pollution

Human activities have led to the pollution of land, water and air. This has a variety of negative
outcomes, including global warming and habitat destruction. Pollution comes from a variety
of sources, including industry and manufacturing processes, waste and discarded rubbish,
chemicals from farming practices, nuclear fall-out, and untreated sewage. Plastics have a
large negative impact on both land and water habitats due to their non-biodegradability.
Animals often try to eat plastic or become caught in it, leading to injuries and death, which
can affect whole the food chain. As plastics take a long time to break down, they accumulate
in habitats which causes an increasing problem.
 1. Eutrophication and water pollution:

Bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers and oceans, become polluted in a variety of ways, such
as oil spills, discarded rubbish, and chemicals. One of the major pollutants to lakes and rivers
is chemicals from fertilizers. When fertilizers are washed off fields into waterways,
eutrophication occurs:

 Fertilizers are washed from fields into the waterways by rain. This brings an excess of
nutrients into the habitat.
 The nutrients cause plants to grow rapidly, and there is an algae bloom across the
surface.
 Algae covers the surface of the water, preventing sunlight from passing through. This
means that plants cannot photosynthesis to produce energy so they begin to die.
 As there are less plants to photosynthesis, less oxygen is released into the water. The
dead plants are broken down by decomposers, which use up the remaining oxygen
from the water.
 The lack of oxygen causes organisms such as fish to die, reducing the biodiversity of
the habitat.

2. Air pollution:

The main pollutants of air are methane and carbon dioxide. These are released into the
atmosphere due to farming practices and manufacturing, especially during the burning of
fossil fuels. Although these gases are released in small quantities naturally, human activity
has greatly increased the rate of their emission.
Air pollution leads to a number of environmental problems: carbon dioxide and methane
contribute to the increasing rate of global warming and climate change, as well as causing
acid rain. Global warming occurs when greenhouse gases rise into the atmosphere and form
a layer around the Earth, preventing heat from the Sun escaping the atmosphere. This means
that the climate of Earth becomes hotter. Acid rain is caused by carbon dioxide dissolving in
rain water to form carbonic acid, and Sulphur dioxide dissolving to make Sulphuric acid. Acid
rain then falls and accumulates in bodies of water and soils, causing a change in pH which may
harm organisms living there. The acid also corrodes infrastructure and damages tree bark and
leaves. To reduce acid rain, Sulphur dioxide is removed from gases before they are released
into the atmosphere. Sulphur can also be removed from fossil fuels before burning, although
this process is expensive. Soils and water can be made less acidic by adding powdered
limestone or slaked lime.

 Conservation

It is important to reduce the negative impacts that humans have on the environment to
conserve the biodiversity of ecosystems. This means increasing the sustainability of resources
and manufacturing. Sustainable resources are those which can be taken from the
environment without the risk of them running out, i.e. they can be produced naturally as
quickly as they are harvested. Resources such as coal and oil are not sustainable as fossil fuels
are non-renewable. Others, such as wood and fish, can be harvested sustainably with the help
of quotas, education and re-stocking.

Development should also happen sustainably. Sustainable development is defined as

development which meets the needs of people today, as well as providing for an increasing
population without damaging the environment. Development must be managed carefully to
maintain sustainability. This involves cooperation between different players, from local
councils and companies, to governments and NGOs, each of whom may have differing
demands. For example, some companies may want to continue harvesting resources to
protect jobs and profits, whereas other people may disagree as it could damage habitats.
 1. Reducing waste:

Unsustainable practices can lead to large amounts of waste. This waste can be reduced by
introducing recycling programmes. Paper, glass, plastic and metals can all be reused and
recycled, which greatly reduces the amount of these materials polluting the environment or
in landfills. It also reduces the demand on sourcing raw materials, which in turn reduces the
amount of habitat destruction.

2. Sewage treatment:

Water treatment happens in three stages: sedimentation, filtration and chlorination. In

sedimentation, larger solids separate out from the water to form sludge, whilst water and
lighter particles which float on top are drained into another tank. This liquid is then passed
through gravel and sand filters in filtration to remove any particles still left in the water.
Finally, chlorine is added to the water to kill microorganisms such as bacteria which makes
the water safe to consume.
 3. Conservation of endangered species:

When the number of surviving organisms in a

species becomes very low, the species is classed as
endangered. This is harmful to a species as it greatly
reduces the gene pool by decreasing the number of
alleles available. This makes the species more
susceptible to disease and less able to adapt to
changes. Species can become endangered for a
variety of reasons, such as habitat destruction,
climate change, hunting, pollution, and competition
from introduced species. If an endangered species
is not protected, it can become extinct. There are
many measures that can be used to protect a
species from extinction:

 Monitoring - endangered animals can be monitored. This allows the number of

organisms left to be tracked over time and can also highlight their preferred habitats
and migration patterns, allowing important habitats to be protected.
 Education - this allows people to understand why a species is becoming extinct so that
protective measures can be implemented.
 Captive breeding programmes - endangered animals can be bred in captivity where
their chance of survival is greater. They can later be reintroduced to habitats in the
wild.
 Seed banks - seeds from endangered plant species can be preserved so that the plants
may be grown in the future.

Conservation is important to prevent the extinction of species and to protect the

environment. It is important to protect these things to improve sustainability and to make
sure that there are resources available in the future