Ecosystem Activites

3/11/12

forest in South Carolina

     One of the overall themes of the book The New American Landscape, that I have recently read, is the numerous jobs that ecosystems perform.  To give an example, here is a list the book provided of the many things trees and bushes in a forested area do at once: 

• building humus via leaf litter,
• breaking heavy soil with roots,
• catching rain with leaves and funneling water towards the trunk,
• holding soil in place with roots
• cooling the forest by its shade,



northern cardinal

• sheltering birds
• sequestering carbon
• sprouting seedlings

variable cracker butterfly

• nurturing insect
• exhaling oxygen
• supporting hundreds os species, directly and indirectly

American Mountain Ash fruit



• producing fruit

     The book argues that this is why nature's designs show resilience and abundance, and that our gardens need to behave like ecosystems.