Ecosystems

Ecosystems are complicated balancing acts. Every organism is important for the survival of all. Take a look at the sea otter video. Without these secondary consumers, sea urchins would destroy kelp forests and many animals would suffer because of loss of habitat and eventually very little would be able to survive at all. If the primary consumers, the urchins, were harvested too much by humans, then the otters would have nothing to eat.

All animals need plants, but do plants need animals to survive? Well, yes and no. Plants are very efficient at turning sunlight into energy to make their own food. So would plants be better off without us? Plants and animals have adapted alongside each other, so many species of plants depend on animals to carry their seeds, to pollinate their flowers to reproduce and help put air in the soil to helps plants grow. Plants also need decomposers to recycle nutrients back into the soil. As, you can see everything in a healthy ecosystem depends on everything else. This is called biodiversity.