Structure of Ecosystem

An ecosystem comprises two broad classes of component that interact continuously with each other. The abiotic (non-living) components include the climatic factors (air, water, sunlight, rainfall, temperature, humidity), the edaphic factors tied to soil (soil air, soil water, soil pH), topographic factors (latitude, altitude), and the organic and inorganic substances present at a given place and time. The total pool of inorganic substances present in an ecosystem at any given moment is called its standing quality (or standing state). The biotic (living) components cover every organism present — plants, animals, fungi and bacteria — and together they build up the ecosystem's trophic structure. Based on how they get their nutrition, biotic components split into two functional groups: autotrophs, chiefly green plants, which manufacture their own organic compounds from simple inorganic raw materials through photosynthesis and are therefore called producers; and heterotrophs, which instead consume the producers, and are further split into macroconsumers (herbivores, carnivores and omnivores — that is, primary, secondary and tertiary consumers) and microconsumers, or decomposers (bacteria, actinomycetes and fungi), which break down dead organisms and release their locked-up nutrients back into the environment for reuse by plants. The total amount of living material present in a population at a given moment is called its standing crop, expressed eit …