Ecology

📖 In short

Ecology studies how living things live together and with the place they live in: water, air and soil. Every living thing needs others: plants need sun and soil, rabbits eat plants, and foxes eat rabbits.

🤩 Did you know?

Scientists who study the environment are called “ecologists”.
On an American island the number of moose rose sharply and then fell, teaching scientists a lot about balance.
Bacteria and fungi are very important because they return substances to the soil.
All living things are connected like a big web.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 The food chain

The food chain starts with plants, which make their food from sunlight, then a plant-eating animal eats them, and a meat-eating animal eats it. When living things die, bacteria and fungi break them down and they become food for the soil again.

🔍 Balance

Nature has a delicate balance: if wolves disappear, for example, deer and moose multiply and eat all the plants, and the forest suffers. If the wolves come back, the balance returns.

💡 Habitat

Every living thing has a habitat that suits it: fish in water, camels in the desert, polar bears on the ice. If the habitat changes or is destroyed, it becomes hard for the creature to survive.

🎯 People and the environment

People are part of the environment, and what they do affects it: pollution and cutting down trees harm it, while farming, recycling and protecting animals help preserve it.

📸 More pictures

🧩 Test yourself

1 What does the food chain start with?

2 What does ecology study?

3 Which picture shows “Ecology”?