🎒 Base knowledge and understanding

✅ Tasks

Habitat is the location in which a community, species, population or organism lives.
A community is a collection of interacting populations within the ecosystem.
Ecosystems are open systems in which both energy and matter can enter and exit. </aside>

Physical locations with specific conditions

Thinking about the pond system you built in foundation.2.1 Systems and systems diagrams list the habitats in a pond

All interacting living populations

Thinking about the pond system you built in foundation.2.1 Systems and systems diagrams list the community components and their internal flows/interactions

Community + physical environment + energy/matter flows

Thinking about the pond system you built in foundation.2.1 Systems and systems diagrams list all the inputs and outputs that cross the system boundary
Looking at the table below: can a single habitat contain a whole community?

Organism	Primary Habitat	Secondary Habitat	Why There?
Algae	Surface/open water	-	Light for photosynthesis
Aquatic plants	Rooted in sediment	Leaves in mid-water	Nutrients from sediment, light above
Herbivores	Among plants	Open water	Food source, shelter
Carnivores	Open water	Among plants	Hunting grounds
Decomposers	Sediment	Throughout water	Dead matter accumulates

Explain what would happen in each of these scenarios. The first one has been done for you:

Pollution adds 500kg of fertiliser

Habitat change → More algae creates darker water (less light penetration)
Community change → Algae population explodes, herbivores increase, then oxygen depletion
Ecosystem change → Input/output balance disrupted, system boundary might expand with algal bloom

All carnivorous fish removed

Sediment is dredged out

Trees planted around pond (create shade)