Eco Column as an Ecosystem

This post is an overview of our EcoColumn and an evaluation of whether it was/is an ecosystem.

An ecosystem is a defined area that is self maintaining, which includes all the different living organisms in that area. These organisms interact with each other and the abiotic components. That is the textbook definition of an ecosystem; our EcoColumn is:

• self-maintaining
• including all the living organisms in the EcoColumn
• interacting with the EcoColumn's abiotic factors and biotic factors

Although, there is little reaction between the zones.

Here are photos of the ecosystem.

Our Terra Zone, which is growing very well from the seeds which we planted at the beginning. Not as visible here, is that the plants are all facing towards the window, therefor the sun, with at least a few leaves.

The splitter between our Terra (Above) and Insect zones. The seeds which we planted have died out because of a lack of soil and maybe water.

Our Insect zone, I cannot see much difference from before the holidays

The Decomp zone, there are decomposers at work here, but too small to bee seen clearly without help.

Finally, our Aqua zone, as you can see, the water level has not changed (marked by duct tape). I looked at the water under a microscope and saw that there were numerous creatures, but I couldn't get a clear picture

From this I conclude that the EcoColumn is almost and ecosystem as the different zones were interacting with themselves but not each other.

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