Ecosystem Structure, Function, and Change Paper Essay - 1

Ecosystem Structure, Function, and Change Paper - Essay Example This area has aquatic plants and macrophytes, then the euphotic zone where less light penetrate is the habitat for fishes, invertebrates and algae. The lake being shallow does not have deep waters where big fishes survive. This lake mostly has plants, algae, small fishes, insects and amphibians. The lake has bottom sediment known as benthic zone and has a surface layer rich in microorganisms. The upper layer of the sediments is active with the benthic organism, insects and small crustaceans. There are abundant forms of larvae, flies and insects along with fish and other predators looming around the shore and water surface. The lake has a flat mucky bottom which offers plenty of rich food supplies to benthic organisms but is less protected as it has fewer amounts of higher plants which inhibits the formation of higher diversity of structural habitat. This lake is not having much of human interference unless on selected days when people come to visit the place .Some days in a week families and young people do visit the area due to its natural beauty. However, it is seen that people do leave lot of garbage on the lake and its shore which has polluted the lake to an extent. There had been debris of plastic bags, cigarettes, cans, bottles, food waste and plastic wastes. So it is obvious that chemicals might have seeped into the soil and water content of the lake. Plastic bags are a huge pollution to aquatic life and they can release all types of chemicals in to the water body and its eco system. As per (Collazo,2012) â€Å"Humans are directly responsible for the decline of population of certain animals in the littoral zone. Humans harvest animals and plants for food, bait, home aquariums, collections, etc.†. This debris like cigarettes, bottles and cans can release chemicals which can again increase the nitrogen and phosphorus content in water that can have adverse effect on the ecosystem.