a natural ecosystem is an assemblage of plants and animals which functions as a unit"
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or biocoenosis is an assemblage of organisms (species populations) whose composition and aspect is determined by the properties of the environment and by the relations of the organisms to each other (modified from Braatne, 2005). Möbius proposed the term biocoenosis in 1877 in his study of oyster reefs in the North Sea, recognizing that interactions between species in a structurally complex system brought with it a higher level of functional complexity. Shelford defined a community as an "assemblage with unity of taxonomic composition and a relatively uniform appearance (Odum, 1959)." The biotic community, along with the physical or abiotic elements of the environment together constitute the ecosystem- how a community of organisms interact with their environment of Tansley (1935)