CHANGES IN ECOSYSTEMS

CHANGES, CHANGES, CHANGES Change is always occurring in ecosystems. All organisms, including humans, cause change. Two types of changes: Natural- happens naturally Human- caused by humans

NATURAL CHANGES: DETRIMENTAL Detrimental means harmful, so a detrimental change to an ecosystem is a change that does harm. Drought- a long period of time with little or no precipitation.

OTHER NATURAL, DETRIMENTAL CHANGES Natural disasters sometimes bring detrimental changes. Examples: forest fires tornadoes flooding hurricanes earthquakes

OTHER NATURAL, DETRIMENTAL CHANGES Overpopulation- when an ecosystem has too many of at least one kind of living thing. For example, what problems may arise if there was an overpopulation of coyotes in forest ecosystem ? More rabbits would be eaten, so the rabbit population would decrease. If there are no rabbits left, what would the coyotes do?

DETRIMENTAL CHANGES CAUSED BY HUMANS Pollution- happens when harmful substances are added to Earth’s water, air, or land. Acid rain- acids mix with water in the air and fall to the Earth.

DETRIMENTAL CHANGES CAUSED BY HUMANS Construction causes detrimental changes to ecosystems. Deforestation- cutting down trees in a forest area

NATURAL CHANGES: BENEFICIAL Beneficial means helpful, so a beneficial change to an ecosystem is something that is helpful. Overpopulation can be beneficial. An overpopulation of rabbits is detrimental for the rabbits because there are not enough resources for all of them. BUT… it’s beneficial for coyotes. They will have MORE to eat!!!

BENEFICIAL CHANGES CAUSED BY HUMANS Laws can be made that decrease or stop pollution, littering, acid rain, and deforestation. Planting trees or other plants is beneficial to every kind of ecosystem. The Three R’s: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse

BENEFICIAL CHANGES CAUSED BY HUMANS New vehicles are being made that use less oil. This means less of damaging ecosystems for oil. New technology uses less electricity. This means less mining for coal.

How could this beaver building a dam be a beneficial change? How could it also be a detrimental change? EXIT SLIP