Levels of Organisation of Living Things (4)

All the individuals living within a specific area are collectively called a population. For
example, a forest may include many white pine trees. All these pine trees represent the
population of white pine trees in this forest. Different populations may live in the same area. The forest with the pine trees includes populations of flowering plants, insects, and microbial populations. A community is the set of populations inhabiting a particular area. For instance, all the trees, flowers, insects, and other populations in a forest form the forest’s community. The forest itself is an ecosystem. An ecosystem consists of all the living things in a particular area together with the abiotic, or non-living, parts of that environment, such as nitrogen in the soil or rainwater. At the highest level of organization, the biosphere is the collection of all ecosystems on planet Earth. It includes land, water, and portions of the atmosphere.