Question

An ecosystem consists of ______ components comprising living organisms.

Answer 1

Hint: Ecosystem comprises both living and nonliving components. The abiotic components comprise non-living things.

Complete answer:
The ecosystem consists of both living/biotic and non-living/abiotic components, and both components affect each other and their surroundings. Interacting components of an ecosystem form a physical structure that is unique to each ecosystem
The biotic component of the ecosystem consists of the living organisms and abiotic components of the ecosystem consist of the non-living organisms.

Additional Information:
- The biotic and abiotic components function as a unit when we observe ecosystem processes like productivity, decomposition, energy flow, and nutrient cycling.
- Productivity can be defined as the production of energy-containing biomass by organisms at any trophic level in the unit area in unit time.
- Decomposition is the breakdown of dead organic matter into simpler forms by physical and chemical processes. Decomposers play a very important role in our ecosystem and help in nutrient cycling.
- Energy Flow: The flow of energy in an ecosystem is unidirectional, starting from the producers (1st Trophic Level) and ending at decomposers (6th Trophic Level).The energy flow is an ecosystem that can be explained using the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics.
- Ecological Efficiency is the ratio between energy assimilated over the energy available between two successive trophic levels. It is of the following types:
Photosynthetic Efficiency
Net Production Efficiency
Assimilation Efficiency
Ecological Efficiency

The whole biosphere of the earth is considered as a global ecosystem.

So, the correct answer is, “An ecosystem consists of biotic components comprising living organisms.”

Note: It has to be remembered that the ecosystem thermodynamically is an open system. Energy received from the sun and nutrients obtained from natural resources are distributed in the ecosystem by the interaction between biotic and abiotic components. The flow of energy is always unidirectional.