In this topic you will learn about the places that plants and animals live in.

Different plants and animals live in different places. However, all plants and animals live in ecosystems. An ecosystem is made up of all the living and nonliving things in an area. An ecosystem can be as small as the space underneath a rock or as large as one of the Great Lakes.

The living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem affect each other in different ways. In a forest ecosystem, dead leaves fall from a tree. Small organisms in the soil break down the leaves. The leaves now become part of the soil.

A community is all the living things in an ecosystem. Each community can be divided into populations. A population is all the members of a certain type of living thing. For example, you might find a population of pill bugs under a rock. Each living thing has a habitat. A habitat is a living thing's home. A frog's habitat is a pond. A centipede's habitat is in or near the soil under a rock.

A pond ecosystem has many different habitats. Each habitat meets the needs of the organisms that live there. All living things in a pond ecosystem depend on living and nonliving things. Algae depend on sunlight and pond water. Insects and small animals depend on the algae for food. Frogs depend on these insects and other animals for food. Fish depend on frogs and tadpoles for food. A heron depends on both fish and frogs for food. Each organism depends on others. All the organisms depend on the pond.