The Balance of Plants & Animals in Nature

Abiotic Factors

• Abiotic factors are the inorganic parts of an ecosystem. Water, climate and terrain are all abiotic factors that determine which plants will grow in an ecosystem. Plants and animals vary in distribution throughout a biome, as well. For example, many species of grasses grow within a prairie biome. Long grasses are found in prairie wetlands, while short grasses predominate in dryer regions. Grazing animals are found throughout this biome because they eat grasses. Ducks, however, are found only in the wetlands in the long-grass regions of the biome and not in the more arid short-grass areas.

Plants

• The plants of a biome serve as food and shelter for the animals of the system. The balance of the flora can be upset by both abiotic and biotic changes in a system. Changes in weather can kill plants; changes in soils, such as pollution, can damage plant life. When an ecosystem is thriving, animal numbers increase and they can overeat the supply of food plants, thus causing a shortage of the species. New species of plants can be introduced into the system and overtake others, resulting in a change of predominant plants in the system.

Animals

• When a food plant shortage occurs, species who eat the plant also decrease in numbers. During times of abundance in prey animals, predators may proliferate and create food shortages for themselves. Humans sometimes kill predatory animals, allowing prey animals to proliferate, in turn affecting the abundance of food supply plants. If prey animals that contribute to plant distribution become scarce, plant life in the system may suffer. A decline of rodent species which spread seeds to germinate plants is an example of how change in animal inhabitation can change plant life in a biome.

Fluctuation In Balance

• Fluctuation is part of every ecosystem because of the synergistic nature of biomes. Balance only means that depletion is temporary. Abundance is restored before chain reactions become too far advanced to be rectified. If it is not, the result is a chain reaction of extinctions. Fluctuation naturally causes transformation over time. Transformation does not necessarily cause ecosystem death. Dinosaurs may be gone, but there are other animals and plant life living in the same biomes that existed then. The systems have just transformed over time. Because of the synergistic nature of biomes, the more abundant the flora and fauna, the easier it is for a system to recover from rapid changes in or depletion of some species.