"Types of ecosystems" is searched about 5,900 times a month in the United States, with a traffic potential of 3,000, by Grade 6 to 9 students (NGSS puts ecosystems in middle school, and most Grade 9 biology courses open with them), and the same question is asked in GCSE Ecology, the Australian Year 7 and 9 courses and CBSE Class 10. This page gives the chart of types, terrestrial and aquatic, with climate, plants, animals and a named example for each, the artificial ecosystems, the parts every ecosystem shares, the ecosystem-biome-habitat distinction, and a printable chart with practice.
Download the ecosystems chart with practice (PDF) (A4, the terrestrial and aquatic charts on page 1, the parts of an ecosystem, the definitions and the practice set with answers on page 2, free).
What an ecosystem is
An ecosystem is a community of living things (all the populations of all the species in a place) plus the non-living environment they live in and depend on, with the interactions between them: feeding, competing, pollinating, decomposing, breathing, sheltering. The word was coined by the botanist Arthur Tansley in 1935 to insist that the living and non-living parts cannot be studied apart.
Size does not matter: a rock pool, a rotting log, a hedgerow, a pond, a coral reef, a forest and the whole biosphere are ecosystems. What matters is that the parts interact and that energy flows through and matter cycles within.
The parts every ecosystem has
| Component | Role | Examples | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biotic (living) | Producers (autotrophs) | make food from sunlight (or chemicals) | plants, algae, phytoplankton, cyanobacteria |
| Consumers (heterotrophs) | eat other organisms: primary (herbivores), secondary and tertiary (carnivores), omnivores | rabbit, fox, eagle, human | |
| Decomposers and detritivores | break down dead matter and waste, returning nutrients | fungi, bacteria, earthworms, woodlice | |
| Abiotic (non-living) | Sunlight | the energy source | determines producers and seasons |
| Temperature | sets metabolic rates and which species survive | tundra against rainforest | |
| Water | availability and salinity | desert against wetland; fresh against salt | |
| Air and gases | oxygen, carbon dioxide, wind | altitude, pollution | |
| Soil or substrate | nutrients, pH, texture, rock or sand or mud | determines plants | |
| Climate and disturbance | rainfall pattern, fire, flood | savanna fire, river flood |
Energy flows one way: Sun → producers → consumers → decomposers, with about 90 percent lost as heat at each step, which is why food chains are short and top predators few. Matter cycles: carbon, nitrogen, water and minerals move from the abiotic parts into living things and back through decomposition.
Terrestrial ecosystems
| Type | Climate | Soil and plants | Animals | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tropical rainforest | hot (25 to 28 °C) and wet (over 2,000 mm) all year, no seasons | thin, nutrient-poor soil (nutrients are in the living plants); tall evergreen trees in layers, lianas, epiphytes | the greatest biodiversity on land: monkeys, jaguars, toucans, tree frogs, millions of insect species | the Amazon, the Congo basin, Borneo, Queensland's Daintree |
| Temperate deciduous forest | four seasons, 750 to 1,500 mm, warm summers, cold winters | rich brown soil from leaf litter; oak, beech, maple, birch that drop leaves in autumn | deer, foxes, squirrels, badgers, woodpeckers, bears in North America | eastern USA, western Europe, Japan |
| Boreal forest (taiga) | long cold winters (to −40 °C), short cool summers, 300 to 850 mm, much as snow | acidic, thin podsol; conifers (spruce, pine, fir, larch) | moose, wolves, lynx, bears, hares, crossbills | Canada, Scandinavia, Siberia: the largest land biome |
| Tropical savanna | hot all year, a wet and a dry season, 500 to 1,300 mm | grasses with scattered trees (acacia, baobab); fire shapes it | large grazers and their predators: zebra, wildebeest, elephant, giraffe, lion, cheetah, hyena | the Serengeti, the Llanos, northern Australia |
| Temperate grassland (prairie, steppe, pampas, veld) | hot summers, cold winters, 250 to 750 mm, too dry for forest | deep fertile soil (the world's grain lands); grasses, few trees | bison, pronghorn, prairie dogs, saiga, kangaroos in Australia | the Great Plains, Ukraine's steppe, Argentina's pampas |
| Hot desert | very hot days, cold nights, under 250 mm, unreliable | sand, rock, salt flats; cacti, succulents, drought-dodging annuals | camels, fennec foxes, scorpions, snakes, lizards, kangaroo rats, nocturnal life | the Sahara, Arabian, Sonoran, Australian deserts |
| Cold desert | cold winters, dry (under 250 mm), high or inland | sparse shrubs, sagebrush, saxaul | Bactrian camels, snow leopards (at altitude), jerboas | the Gobi, Great Basin, Patagonia, Antarctica's dry valleys |
| Tundra | very cold (−30 °C winters), short summers, under 250 mm, permafrost | frozen subsoil; mosses, lichens, grasses, dwarf willow, no trees | caribou, Arctic foxes, lemmings, snowy owls, musk oxen, migrating birds | northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia; alpine tundra above the tree line |
| Mountain | changes with altitude: forest, then alpine meadow, then rock and snow | zones stacked like latitudes | mountain goats, pikas, condors, snow leopards | the Rockies, Alps, Himalayas, Andes |
Aquatic ecosystems
| Type | Water | Plants and producers | Animals | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakes and ponds (lentic, still fresh water) | fresh, still, layered by temperature and light (littoral, limnetic, profundal zones) | reeds and lilies at the edge, phytoplankton in open water | fish (perch, pike), frogs, dragonflies, ducks, otters | Lake Superior, Lake Victoria, a garden pond |
| Rivers and streams (lotic, flowing fresh water) | fresh, moving, oxygen-rich; changes from source to mouth | algae on stones, mosses, bankside trees | trout upstream, carp downstream, mayfly larvae, kingfishers, platypus in Australia | the Nile, the Mississippi, the Murray |
| Wetlands (marsh, swamp, bog, fen) | shallow, waterlogged, fresh or brackish | reeds, sedges, mangroves (coastal), sphagnum (bogs) | wading birds, frogs, alligators, insects; nurseries for fish | the Everglades, the Pantanal, the Sundarbans, Kakadu |
| Estuaries | where a river meets the sea: brackish, tidal, nutrient-rich | salt-marsh grasses, seagrass, mangroves in the tropics | shellfish, crabs, young fish, huge bird numbers | the Thames estuary, Chesapeake Bay |
| Intertidal shore | covered and uncovered twice a day: rocky, sandy or muddy | seaweeds, lichens | barnacles, limpets, mussels, crabs, anemones, shorebirds | any rocky shore; rock pools |
| Coral reefs | warm (23 to 29 °C), clear, shallow, salty tropical seas | zooxanthellae algae living inside the coral | a quarter of all marine species: reef fish, turtles, sharks, octopus | the Great Barrier Reef, the Red Sea, the Caribbean |
| Open ocean (pelagic) | the sunlit top 200 m (epipelagic), then dark, cold layers | phytoplankton, which make about half the world's oxygen | tuna, whales, dolphins, jellyfish, seabirds | the Pacific, Atlantic |
| Deep sea (abyssal) | below 1,000 m: no light, near 4 °C, crushing pressure | none (except chemosynthetic bacteria at hydrothermal vents) | anglerfish, giant squid, tube worms at vents, scavengers | the Mariana Trench, the mid-ocean ridges |
Marine ecosystems cover 71 percent of the planet; fresh water covers under 1 percent of the surface but holds a tenth of all known animal species.
Artificial ecosystems
Farmland (wheat fields, rice paddies, orchards, pasture), plantations, gardens and parks, cities, reservoirs and canals, fish farms, greenhouses and aquariums are artificial or anthropogenic ecosystems. They have producers, consumers and decomposers and the same abiotic factors, but low biodiversity (often one species on purpose), short food chains and no self-regulation: they need water, fertiliser, pest control, weeding and harvesting to stay as they are. Natural ecosystems are self-sustaining: they maintain themselves through their own cycles. The distinction is a CBSE Class 10 and GCSE favourite.
Ecosystem, biome, habitat, community, population
| Term | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Population | all the individuals of one species in a place | the frogs in a pond |
| Community | all the populations of all species in a place | the frogs, fish, insects, plants and bacteria of the pond |
| Habitat | the place where an organism lives | the pond is the frog's habitat |
| Ecosystem | the community plus its non-living environment, interacting | the pond with its water, light, mud and all its life |
| Biome | a world region with one climate type and its characteristic ecosystems | the temperate forest biome, containing that pond |
| Biosphere | every ecosystem on Earth together |
Where it sits in each curriculum
| Curriculum | When | What is expected |
|---|---|---|
| US (NGSS) | Grade 5 (5-LS2-1: matter cycles among plants, animals, decomposers and the environment), middle school (MS-LS2-1 to MS-LS2-5: resources, interactions, energy flow, ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity), high school biology (HS-LS2) | types with examples, biotic and abiotic factors, energy flow |
| England | KS2 Year 4 and 6 (habitats, classification), KS3 (interdependence: food webs), GCSE Biology, Ecology topic (communities, abiotic and biotic factors, adaptations, biodiversity, the required practical on sampling) | abiotic and biotic factors named, interdependence explained |
| Australia | Year 7 (AC9S7U02: food chains and webs, interactions in ecosystems), Year 9 (ecosystems and the flow of energy and matter), Year 11 and 12 Biology | types and interactions |
| India (CBSE) | Class 10 (Our Environment: ecosystem, natural and artificial, food chains, trophic levels), Class 12 (Ecosystem: structure, productivity, decomposition, energy flow) | natural against artificial in Class 10; structure and function in Class 12 |
| Canada (Ontario) | Grade 7 (interactions in the environment: ecosystems, biotic and abiotic), Grade 9 (sustainable ecosystems) | types, parts, sustainability |
Practice (answers in the PDF)
- Define an ecosystem and name its two kinds of components with two examples of each.
- Which terrestrial ecosystem has the greatest biodiversity, and why is its soil poor despite that?
- Match each animal to its ecosystem: caribou, camel, jaguar, bison, anglerfish, barnacle.
- What is the difference between a lentic and a lotic ecosystem? Give an example of each.
- Give three ways an artificial ecosystem differs from a natural one.
- A pond, the temperate forest biome and the frogs in the pond: which is a population, which an ecosystem, which a biome?
Download the chart and the practice set (PDF)
Where to get help
A 1-on-1 online biology class with a tutor who teaches NGSS middle and high-school life science, GCSE and A-level biology, the Australian Years 7 to 12 and CBSE Class 10 and 12 every week: ecosystems taught from one real place the child knows outward, with the chart filled in together and the abiotic-biotic vocabulary attached to examples. The biology page lists the courses; the free 30-minute first class is a real lesson on this week's topic. Related pages: adaptations in animals and plants and resource partitioning.
Questions parents ask
1What are the main types of ecosystems?
2What is an ecosystem?
3What is the difference between an ecosystem and a biome?
4What are the parts of an ecosystem?
5What is an artificial ecosystem?
See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →
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