22 EXAMPLES OF FEATURED ECOSYSTEMS - ENVIRONMENT - 2025

The ecosystems are shaped by a group of living organisms that live in a specific place and determined with suitable living conditions and full development systems.

In ecosystems, the organisms that reside in it are dependent on each other and on the habitat in which they are.

The concept of ecosystem is a novelty in the field of biological sciences, since it dates from the third or fourth decade of the 20th century.

At this time, elements that had remained differentiated began to be directly related. Plants, animals, fungi and bacteria ceased to be isolated entities to be understood as part of a group also made up of the habitats they maintain and the reasons why they develop them.

The ecosystem should not be confused with biomes, which are the physical geographical units that define a certain climate, vegetation, soils or other elements.

Ecosystems can be aquatic, terrestrial, hybrid, or so tiny that they simply fall into the microbial category. Some examples of ecosystems are:

Examples of terrestrial, aquatic, hybrid and microbial ecosystems

Terrestrial

Tropical forests

Ecosystem present in the Amazon, South America and in some jungles of Africa and Asia. They are the purest reservoirs of biodiversity and life in a natural state on the entire planet Earth.

Due to its difficult access, they have been kept safe from man, who attacks it through logging and hunting. It has high precipitation, it can be rainy or monsoon and mountain or basal.

Hardwood forests

Typical of slightly humid and temperate areas. It comes in different forms, such as the Mediterranean forest, which can be transformed into a temperate forest if there is more precipitation.

Temperate coniferous forests

The trees exceed ten meters and are rich in animal species, with strong fur, because these forests are from cold areas. The leaves are acicular and its trees are usually pine or cedars.

Paramo

It is the ecosystem that characterizes the páramo or high mountain areas, when they exceed 4000 meters above sea level.

The vegetation is constituted mainly in the form of small bushes called frailejones. Precipitation can occur as snow, depending on the time of year.

Shrubbery

Large large flat areas, without grass layers. The land is clayey and the vegetation consists of bushes that adopt irregular shapes, such as the short tree, the Mediterranean scrub and the jaral.

Xerophilous

Common ecosystem in semi-desert areas, generally close to the sea. Its vegetation is based on cacti and bromeliads, as well as some fruits rich in water.

bed sheet

It is usually the border of the jungle. It is found mostly in tropical and subtropical areas.

Their characteristics vary greatly from each other, and different elements depend on their vegetation, such as the oxide of the soils and therefore their age, rainfall and altitude. However, the vegetation is herbaceous and sometimes shrubs.

Meadow

It is an ecosystem of temperate climates. Their lands can be used for agriculture because they have good water absorption and drainage, in addition to being formed in flat or hilly areas.

Steppe

Natural from the coldest climates. They are flat lands populated with smaller grasses, in which very little rainfall occurs, with extreme temperatures. They are far from the sea.

Tundra

Areas close to polar circles. They remain frozen for most of the year, their subsoil is frozen and little trees are present. Its vegetation consists of lichens and mosses. It can be alpine, arctic or Antarctic.

Polar zones

Made up of ice caps, they are polar deserts. Also known as inlandsis, it covers a certain territory permanently. It occurs in Antarctica and on the island of Greenland.

Arid deserts

Typical of tropical or subtropical climates, the largest is the Sahara. Its vegetation is non-existent or sometimes xerophilous.

It can also occur in cold and temperate areas. Its main characteristic is the lack of rainfall.

Urban environment

It is from ecosystems transformed by humans. They are not natural, but they adapt to the nature of the environment. They can be cities, towns or any place that ends up being used for residence.

Water

Coral reef (photic)

One of the largest agglomerations of life is presented in it in a small space, which is sheltered inside.

They feed back through their biological processes and are typical of marine areas, receiving direct sunlight for photosynthesis.

Deep ocean zones (aphotic)

When talking about the seabed, one talks about extreme ecosystems with very little presence of animals, due to the absence of light.

The few species that live there developed organisms to emit light. Strong presence of microscopic life.

Lotic ecosystem

Fresh water has its own type of ecosystem, which is managed on the banks of the rivers and makes the present vegetation adapt to the changes that the river causes. Study mainly tap water.

Lentic Ecosystem

Unlike the lotic, this ecosystem is responsible for studying bodies of still water, which do not flow and remain immobile but not stagnant. The most famous body of this style are the lakes.

Hybrid

Mangrove swamp

It occurs in coastal areas, especially in lakes with marine inlets. Its vegetation is mangroves, trees that establish their long roots at the bottom of the lakes and are not very tall.

Estuary

Always close to bodies of water such as rivers or lakes, they are swamps that have rich vegetation, both in aquatic shrubs and palm trees and tree species typical of hot areas.

Reedbed

They are long plains that tend to flood at certain times of the year, so they are generally close to different bodies of water. Its main vegetation is the reeds.

Microbial

Microbiota ecosystem

Present inside multicellular organisms, microbiota constitute an ecosystem in any living being, such as the human body.

Biofilm ecosystem

Also known as biofilms, they form organized ecosystems that adhere to one or more living or inert surfaces to form a community that supports each other.

References

1. Bergstrom, J., Brown, T., and Loomis J. (2007). Defining, Valuing, and Providing Ecosystem Goods and Services. Natural Resources Journal. (47). 330-376.
2. Conserve Energy Future (nd). What is an Ecosystem? Conserve Energy Future. Recovered from conserve-energy-future.com.
3. National Geographic. (sf). Ecosystem. National Geographic. Recovered from nationalgeographic.org.
4. Sharma, P. (2014). Types of Ecosystems: A Brief Overview. Udemy Blog. Recovered from blog.udemy.com.
5. University of Michigan. (2016). The Ecosystem and how it relates to Sustainability. Climate Change, University of Michigan. Recovered from globalchange.umich.edu.
6. Vidyasagar, A. (2016). What are Biofilms? Live Science. Recovered from livescience.com.
7. World Atlas. (sf). What Is An Ecosystem? What Types Of Ecosystems Are There? World Atlas. Recovered from worldatlas.com.