Within all species, individuals interact with each other - feeding together, mating together, and living together. Some species have a pecking order as well, and each individual has a role to play within it.
However, it is not only individuals within a species that interact. Different species of animals interact with each other all the time. For instance, animals eat other animals through their interactions in a food web. But plants are included in this web as well as they, too, are eaten by animals.
Ecosystems are everywhere and an individual plant or animal - even a human being - cannot exist separate from an ecosystem. They are diverse and always changing. Within an ecosystem, all aspects of the environment (both living things and their non-living settings) interact and affect one another. Every species affects the lives of those around them.
Different areas in the world house different ecosystems. For example, you won't find an elephant or a tropical rainforest in Alberta! The different world ecological units are called biomes and they each have different flora, fauna, landscapes and weather patterns. An ecosystem is not the same thing as a biome. A biome is a large unit that is home to many different ecosystems. Within Alberta, there are six different biomes that each have their own specific flora and fauna distribution. These regions are: Grassland, Parkland, Boreal Forest, Foothill, Rocky Mountain and the Canadian Shield.
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