Science Answer the following question.

Cheetah is the fastest running feline animal on the earth. Though from Asian regions it is said to be extinct, in African grasslands, its occurrence is still there. But it is endangered animal. By 2016, the global cheetah population is estimated at approximately 7,100 individuals in the wild. Several African countries have taken steps to improve cheetah conservation measures.

Cheetah has a slender body, deep chest, spotted coat. Its head is small rounded and on the face there is black tear-like streaks. It has long thin legs and a long spotted tail. Cheetah in India were tamed during Moghul period for assisting in hunting. Stories about such episodes are commonly told. However, the last Cheetah in India was spotted in Bastar, M.P. in 1948.

When British ruled India, Asian Cheetah was hunted to a great extent. The kings and British rulers did rampant hunting. The forest lands were also reduced due to encroachment by humans to build their settlements. Dams were constructed. Mega highways, bridges and roads caused loss of habitat for Asian Cheetah. Cheetah needs large thickly forested territory. This was lost due to all man-made activities. All these reasons made Asian Cheetah extinct in last century.

Man tries to use grasslands for agricultural purpose. This transformation causes loss of natural ecosystem. Many animals from grasslands are killed by hunting and poaching. Though now Wildlife Act has protected these animals, many wildlife species are already extinct. There are chances of forest fires which is the greatest threat to grasslands. The global warming may also cause grasslands to become a desert.

Honey bees provide us with honey and bee-wax. Both of these are commercial products. But more than that the role played by honey bees in the pollination of flowers is very important. Due to their nectar collecting behaviour, they bring about pollination of the flowers.

Presence of honey bees is thus very essential for the agriculture and horticulture. Without honey bees, the growth of fruits and grains will not be possible, if pollination and subsequent fertilization does not take place in nature. This will create famine-like conditions. Therefore, honey bees’ position in the nature is very important.

The huge tree can be an independent ecosystem. On one such tree there may be different habitats. Variety of insects thrive on huge tree by making their habitats in cracks and crevices on the tree. Many birds visit the tree to feed on such insects. There are many bird species that live in the hollow of the tree. Garden lizards, chameleons, snakes are the different reptiles seen associated with the tree ecosystem.

Squirrels, rabbits, bats are the mammals which take shelter in and around the trees, also inhabit a tree variety of fungi, lichens, mosses and epiphytic plants like orchids survive on the huge trees. Many food chains and complicated food webs are formed with the support of the tree. Thus one can say that a tree is an independent ecosystem.

The aquatic flora (plants) and fauna (animals) are well adapted to their habitats. The running water ecosystems are known as lotic ecosystems. The non-moving waters on the contrary create lentic ecosystems. Lotic ecosystems provide special adaptations to the plants and animals living therein. Plants are mostly in the form of freely floating algae and phytoplankton. Animals are well adapted for swimming in the currents of water. The fishes especially show a stream-lined body, fins for swimming, and gills to take up dissolved oxygen in the water. The other animals are also well adapted to the currents of water.

The biotic factors include plants, animals and humans. Lot of vegetation is submerged from the place where dam is constructed. The forests are wiped out. Large scale deforestation takes place in the proposed dam area. Wildlife is destroyed completely. The resident animals whose habitat are there either migrate away or are killed due to lack of their food and shelter. Many instances of animal-human conflicts arise when the wild animals drift to the neighbouring human settlements.

If human settlements are shifted, people are displaced. They lose their houses and agricultural land. Though compensation is given to them, there is great change for the people. Water current in lower area of the dam is reduced due to construction of dam-walls. Therefore, the original lotic (running 5 water) ecosystems that were present are destroyed after the construction of dam.

The complex feeding relationships form a food web. In nature in any ecosystem, the food chains are not straight and linear. But these are quite complex. A prey is consumed by a predator but this predator can itself be a prey to some other predator. E.g. Frog is a predator for variety of insects but frog is preyed upon by snake and the snake can be eaten by a bird. The same bird can also feed on insects or frog. The interrelationships between different biotic components of any ecosystem thus form the complicated food web.

Biomes are a larger collection of small ecosystems which are similar in their structure. In a particular biome there are same climatic, abiotic factors and similar living organisms. Biomes are of two main types, land biomes and aquatic biomes. The land biomes exist only on land. Land biomes are of following subtypes based on the abiotic factors. E.g. Grasslands, evergreen forests, deserts, Tundra ecosystem, ecosystems in Taiga, tropical rainforests, etc. Aquatic biomes include freshwater ecosystem, marine ecosystem and brackish water ecosystem found in the creeks.

Ecosystem is the structure formed by the interrelationships between the living organisms and non-living components in their surrounding habitats. Living organisms are also called biotic factors while the non-living components are called abiotic factors. The abiotic and biotic factors have a reciprocal relationship with each other. The ecosystem has plants as producers, animals as consumers and microbes as decomposers.

The decomposers return the substances back to the nature by process of decomposition in which the organic complex molecules are reduced to their inorganic constituents. Thus the dead remains of plants and animals are once again recycled back to the nature in any healthy ecosystem.