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How to Identify an Ecosystem in the Area Where You Live

It's one thing to be able to say your neighborhood ravine is wooded; it's another to note that cottonwoods and willows dominate the steep-sloped riparian zone and that it is a habitat for bobcats, barred owls and short-tailed shrews. Learning to identify ecosystems, the interdependent ecological systems binding terrain, soil, weather and organisms, broadens your awareness of the local landscape and reminds you that you are as much a part of its communities as any other component.

Instructions

- 1
  Find climate data for the area. This is readily available through the online records of the National Weather Service. (See Resource 2) Data on long-term weather patterns, notably temperature and precipitation, give you perspective on the broader context of an ecosystem. Climate plays an enormous role in determining ecological communities. (See Reference 1, pages 38, 39) Relatively low precipitation and seasonal extremes of temperature, for example, often support steppe or semi-desert country. (See Reference 2).
- 2
  Obtain a soil profile. Climate can strongly influence soil formation, as can underlying geology and vegetation (the latter, in turn, is partly dictated by the soil). (See Reference 1, pages 32, 34) The casual observer doesn't need to delve too deeply in this regard, but understanding the general properties of a landscape's soil, such as its proportion of clay, silt and sand and its drainage, lends insight into the vegetation communities it supports. Resources for obtaining such basic soil data include the soil-survey data managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the eco-region descriptions from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (See Resources 2, 3) From such sources you can determine the broad categories of soil common to your area and their characteristics.
- 3
  
  Ecosystems are partly defined by their major plant communities.
  
  Identify major plant associations. This takes a botanist's precision and an ecologist's eye to the big picture. A thorough survey of all vegetation species in a given area is often less important than familiarization with the handful of trees, shrubs and herbs that dominate and the relationships between them. For example, on a mountain slope in the Intermountain West you might find a pine (such as ponderosa) dominating an open woodland with an understory of a common shrubbery (such as curl-leaf mountain mahogany) and a ground cover of bunch grasses (such as Idaho fescue). You might then codify that habitat tract as a ponderosa pine-mountain mahogany-Idaho fescue community, and look for it elsewhere in the larger landscape.
- 4
  Describe the landscape structure and topography. In the above example. You could describe the pine-shrub-bunch grass community as a savanna if the trees are widely spaced. A low-lying riparian wetland dominated by trees is a floodplain swamp. In such forested communities, estimate the relative extent of the canopy, which has a major influence on the lower tiers of the woodland ecosystem. (See Reference 3). Consider the relationship between vegetation communities and the terrain, which suggests the influence of microclimates on ecosystem structure.
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  Survey animal species and roughly define their ecological niches.
  
  Get a sense of animal diversity and niches. You might survey the fauna through visual or auditory observation, setting up motion-sensor cameras, and identifying tracks and other signs. An animal's niche is essentially its "job" within an ecosystem (plants also fill niches), from apex predator to minuscule scavenger. The more niches you find, the more complex the ecosystem suggested.

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