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Ecosystems

A community of animals, plants and microorganisms, together with their habitat is called an ecosystem.

For example, a pond ecosystem may consist of a pond habitat, inhabited by aquatic plants, microorganisms in the mud at the bottom, fish in the water and a heron on the bank.

If one part of an ecosystem is changed, this may affect other living things in the ecosystem. For example, if a disease suddenly wipes out the plants in a pond, it might affect the fish and heron because they have less food to eat.