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In the Everglades National Park there has been a severe outbreak of pollutants in the soil.
Impacts:
Pollution in the soil would increase the the salinity of the soil making it unfit for vegetation, thus making it useless and barren. If some crops manage to grow under these conditions, they would be poisonous enough to cause serious health problems in the organisims that consume them. Soil pollution also causes the loss of soil and natural nutrients present in it, worseining a plants ability to thrive in such soil, which would further result in soil erosion and disturbing the balance animals and plants residing in the soil. From soil pollution, since the plants would become poisonous, this would affect the organisms consuming those plants and the organisms consuming the organism that ate the poisonous plant and so on. So, if the producers are poisonous, this would affect the whole entire food web, causing many deaths, sickness, and weakness in many species of organisms living in the Everglades. This can also impact the abiotic factors in my ecosystem because without some organisms, the abiotic factor cannot be supported or sustained. For example, the poison in the soil can cause the death of decomposers, which will then cause the soil to have less nutrients for the plants, so their is almost no use for the soil. With the deaths of many organisms in the food web, as the poison passes from organism to organism, biodiersity will decrease as more organisms die. Sometimes, when there is way to less biodiversity, an ecosystem cannot be supported. The pollutants in the soil will only lead to the destruction of the ecosystem, for now.
Effect on the Cycling of Matter:
Effect on the Flow of Energy
As the poison eliminates more and more organisms from the ecosystem, there will be less matter to be transfered through the matter cycle. With less matter to be broken down by decomposers, there will be less transfer of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which can affect the whole ecosystem. The remaining producers may have a chance of populating, if conditions for the posion in the soil weaken, and without many herbivores to consume them, they can consume many resources, such as water. This will then cause competition for those resources, which lower the matter cycle even more.
As the poison eliminates more and more organisms from the ecosystem, there will be less matter to be transfered through the matter cycle. With less matter to be broken down by decomposers, there will be less transfer of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which can affect the whole ecosystem. The remaining producers may have a chance of populating, if conditions for the posion in the soil weaken, and without many herbivores to consume them, they can consume many resources, such as water. This will then cause competition for those resources, which lower the matter cycle even more.
With the pollution affecting the entire food web, every organism would have an effect. The poison from the pollutants in the soil makes the plants deadly for the consumers. The consumers that consume those plants can get very sick or even die. As the poison is passed up the trophic levels, the ecosystem population keeps on getting smaller and all the organisms will be sick. This will cause a decrease in the flow of energy with fewer organisms left to pass more energy on. The Everglades may have a chance of dying out completley, or having a few surviviors from each trophic level left. Species who are not able to adapt to different diets, may not survive and this will cause the decrease of the following species in the higher trophic levels, which can stop the flow of energy for the whole ecosystem.
With the pollution affecting the entire food web, every organism would have an effect. The poison from the pollutants in the soil makes the plants deadly for the consumers. The consumers that consume those plants can get very sick or even die. As the poison is passed up the trophic levels, the ecosystem population keeps on getting smaller and all the organisms will be sick. This will cause a decrease in the flow of energy with fewer organisms left to pass more energy on. The Everglades may have a chance of dying out completley, or having a few surviviors from each trophic level left. Species who are not able to adapt to different diets, may not survive and this will cause the decrease of the following species in the higher trophic levels, which can stop the flow of energy for the whole ecosystem.
What will it take to restore the Everglades ecosystem?
Ecosystems can never 'die', they will keep moving on with life. There are ways we can restore the Everglades. According to "www.soil-net.com", soil pollution can be stopped through leaching with water, heating, the injection of compounds that dissolve the contaminants, or treating soil in a way that locks up the pollutants so that they can be pumped out of the system. So, there is a possibilty to restore this ecosystem with the leaching of water, heating, injection of compounds that dissolve contaminants, or treating soil so pollutants can be pumped out if there are any remaining organisms and after we could carefully introduce species native to the Everglades in order to repopulate the ecosystem. Repopulating the ecosystem recquires a careful balance between organisms and in no time our ecosystem will be back to normal saved from the pollutants in the soil!
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