"Our environment consists of all living and non-living components around us. But
due to unplanned use of technology, we are polluting the environment and thereby
causing harm to it". Justify.
Answers
Answer:
Living and nonliving things interact in land and water environments called
ecosystems. Every ecosystem has certain conditions (“abiotic factors”) and a
variety of living things (“organisms”) that are adapted for survival in those
conditions. Abiotic factors include the quality and amount of air, sunlight, water
and soil, as well as the terrain and climate.
2. Organisms depend on other organisms and on the nonliving things in an
ecosystem to meet their basic needs for food, water and protection.
3. Plants use energy from the sun to produce their own food from air and water. The
type of soil, amount of water and temperature range in an area determine the
plants that grow there.
4. Animals that live in an area get their energy and nutrients either directly or
indirectly from plants that grow there: herbivores consume only plants, carnivores
consume animals, and omnivores consume both animals and plants.
Decomposers consume plant and animal waste and remains, returning nutrients to
the soil where they are used again by plants.
5. Some of the sun’s energy is transferred from one organism to another when a
plant or animal is consumed by another animal. A food chain is a simple model
that illustrates the passage of energy from one organism to another. Food webs
are more realistic models that show the varied energy-passing relationships
among plants and animals in an ecosystem.
6. Environments are always changing. Some changes occur naturally (examples
include disease outbreaks, violent storms, forest fires sparked by lightning). Other
changes are caused by human activity (examples include establishing
conservation areas, passing laws to control pollution, clearing forests for
agriculture or construction, applying chemicals to lawns and crops, burning fossil
fuels, etc.).
7. Changes in an environment are sometimes beneficial to organisms and sometimes
harmful. For example, a newly created beaver pond provides habitat that attracts
frogs and raccoons to an area; but trees, earthworms and moles are no longer able to survive in the area.
8. When environments change, some organisms can accommodate the change by
eating different foods or finding different shelters (for example, hawks nest on
city buildings and consume pigeons and rats). Those organisms that can no longer
meet their basic needs die or move to new locations.