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What is a Terrestrial Ecosystem?

seo-qna
Last updated date: 29th Jun 2024
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Answer
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Hint: Instead of living in the sea, trees, or the air, a terrestrial animal or plant lives on land or the ground. Terrestrial animals are those that spend the majority of their time on land, as opposed to aquatic animals, which spend the majority of their time in the water, or amphibians, which use both aquatic and terrestrial habitats.

Complete answer:
An ecosystem is a collection of interconnected communities of both living and non-living things. While there are many ecosystems on land and in the oceans around the world, terrestrial ecosystems are those that only exist on land. Plants and animals are among the biotic, or living things, that can be found in an ecosystem. The various land-forms and climate are examples of abiotic, or nonliving, things found in an ecosystem.
Terrestrial ecosystems are those that exist on the ground. Tundra, taiga, temperate deciduous forest, tropical rainforest, grassland, and deserts are examples. Terrestrial ecosystems are distinguished from aquatic ecosystems by the presence of soil rather than water at the surface, as well as the extension of plants above this soil or water surface.
Terrestrial ecosystems have a wide range of water availability (including water scarcity in some cases), whereas water is rarely a limiting factor for organisms in aquatic ecosystems. Terrestrial ecosystems typically experience greater diurnal and seasonal temperature fluctuations than aquatic ecosystems in similar climates because water buffers temperature fluctuations. Terrestrial ecosystems are particularly important in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 15, which focuses on the conservation, restoration, and long-term use of terrestrial ecosystems.
Thus, Terrestrial ecosystems are those that exist on the ground. Tundra, taiga, temperate deciduous forest, tropical rainforest, grassland, and deserts are examples.

Note:
Organisms in terrestrial ecosystems have evolved adaptations that allow them to obtain water when their entire body is no longer submerged in the fluid, as well as methods for transporting water from limited sources to the rest of the body and preventing evaporation from body surfaces. They also have characteristics that allow them to maintain body support in the atmosphere, which is a much less buoyant medium than water, as well as other characteristics that allow them to withstand the extremes of temperature, wind, and humidity found in terrestrial ecosystems.