The biosphere consists of the interacting living and nonliving parts of the Earth, including the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. Biomes are the major global communities of plants and animals defined by common climate and geography. Terrestrial biomes like forests, grasslands, and deserts vary with latitude, elevation, moisture, and temperature regimes. An ecosystem is a functional unit comprising interacting living and nonliving components, including producers, consumers, decomposers, and abiotic factors. Solar energy is the primary driver of ecosystem dynamics.

1. 1
Hai Hoa Nguyen/ESP/Natural Resource Management/W3_LO3_2015_Reading 2_Part I
BIOMES AND ECOSYSTEMS
PART I
Warm-up exercises (Discussion in the class):
1) What is the biosphere?
2) What is a biome?
3) What is an ecosystem?
Reading task:
The part of the world where life operates is known as the biosphere. The biosphere consists of
the air (atmosphere), water (hydrosphere) and earth (lithosphere) where living things interact
with their environment. Several approaches are used to classify its regions.
The broad units of vegetation are called as plant formations (system) by European ecologists
and biomes (community) by North American ecologists. The major difference between the two
terms is that biomes include associated animal life. Major biomes, however, go by the name of
the dominant forms of plant life.
Influenced by latitude; elevation; and associated moisture and temperature regimes, terrestrial
biomes vary geographically from the tropics through the arctic and include various types of
forest, grassland, shrub land and desert. These biomes also include their associated freshwater
communities: namely streams, lakes, ponds and wetlands. Marine environments are also
considered as biomes by some ecologists, which comprise the open ocean, littoral (sea)
(shallow water) regions, benthic (bottom) regions, rocky shores, sandy shores, estuaries and
associated tidal marshes.
A more useful way of looking at the terrestrial and aquatic landscapes is to view them as
ecosystems, a word coined (named) in 1935 by the British plant ecologist Sir Arthur George
Tansley to stress the concept of each local or habitat as an integrated whole. A system is a
collection of interdependent parts that function as a unit and involve inputs and outputs. The
major parts of an ecosystem are the producers (green plants); the consumers (herbivores and
carnivores); the decomposers (fungi and bacteria), and the nonliving or abiotic components,

2. 2
Hai Hoa Nguyen/ESP/Natural Resource Management/W3_LO3_2015_Reading 2_Part I
consisting of dead organic matter and nutrients in the soil and water. Inputs into the ecosystem
are solar energy, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other elements and compounds.
Outputs from the ecosystem include water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrient losses, and the
heat released in cellular respiration or heat of respiration. The major driving force is solar
energy.
READING CONPREHENSION
Section 1: Questions
Answer the questions about the reading:
1) What is the biosphere?
2) What is a major difference between vegetation formations and biomes?
3) What are terrestrial biomes influenced by?
4) How do terrestrial biomes vary?
5) What is the meaning of system from this text?
6) How many major parts of an ecosystem are there and what are they?
Section 2: True and false statements
Write T if the sentence is true and F if it is false
1) From this reading, vegetation formations do not include associated animal life:
2) The major driving force in an ecosystem is solar energy:
3) Inputs into the ecosystem include carbon dioxide and nitrogen:
4) The term ecosystems was invented by Sir Arthur George Tansley:
5) Grassland and dessert are not types of terrestrial biomes:

3. 3
Hai Hoa Nguyen/ESP/Natural Resource Management/W3_LO3_2015_Reading 2_Part I
Section 3: Vocabulary
Choose the best word or phrase in the box for each of the following sentences.
interdependent affect consist of organic nutrients
interact
inorganic
abiotic
dependent
components
called
named
biotic
associated
materials
1) Both the biotic and abiotic ...............are equally important in the ecosystem.
2) Plants draw minerals and other .................from the soil.
3) A system is a collection of .............parts that function as a unit.
4) ............ vegetables are produced without using artificial chemicals.
5) The study of ecology also includes how the nonliving factors in the environment
...................one another.
6) A biome includes ....................animal life.
7) The biosphere is that part of the world where living things ……….with their environment.
8) The term ecology was …………by a German zoologist, Ernst Haeckel.
9) The nonliving factors of the environment make up the ..............component of the
ecosystem.
10) Marine environments ............the open ocean, littoral regions, benthic regions, rocky
shores, sandy shores, estuaries and associated tidal marshes.