Cooperate Within an Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a community of organisms (plants, animals, and microbes) interacting with one another and the nonliving components of their environment (such as air, water, and mineral soil). This interaction can be passive or active, and can cooperatively enhance the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. For cooperation to contribute to maintaining communities within an ecosystem, it must be beneficial to at least some members of the community. Cooperation consists of symbiotic relationships, such as mutualism (in which two or more species in an ecosystem benefit) and commensalism (in which one species benefits and the effect on others is neutral). An example of a commensal relationship is that between bromeliad plants and trees: bromeliads live on trees without harming them. Bromeliads have mutualistic relationships with other species, including insects, frogs, and worms. The plants capture water in their base, forming a pond that these organisms join. The nutrients that these organisms excrete in their droppings nourish the bromeliad.
Regulate Climate
Individuals and ecosystems manage local atmospheric conditions, thus regulating local climates. The local scale refers to climates such as those found under a shrub or within a forest. This local climate is called a microclimate. Regulating local climate creates favorable conditions, such as increased humidity or less severe winds, and contributes to species diversity. Microclimate development occurs over time: just from their presence, a few species initially able to tolerate the local conditions start to modify those conditions, resulting in microclimates that support others. For example, plants that live in alpine areas are subject to strong ultraviolet light, drying winds, and freezing temperatures. By growing together into dense clusters, these plants create a favorable microclimate that supports survival of a diversity of species.
Maintain Biodiversity
The greater the amount of genetic and species variation in an ecosystem, the more resilient that ecosystem is to disturbances. Variation in ecosystems across the Earth also contributes to the Earth’s resilience to unpredictable changes. This variation is called biodiversity. Because living systems compete with each other for scarce resources, maintaining biodiversity involves creating conditions for a large variety of species to successfully co-occur and reproduce. For example, within a wetland, there are different vegetation types. This diversity results in a complex mosaic of microenvironments as the vegetation types alter air flows, light regimes, and water temperatures and chemistry. Because organisms vary in their ideal environmental conditions, these micro-environments increase the diversity of plants in the wetland. In turn, having a wetland in an otherwise dry area increases biodiversity at an even larger scale.
