An ecosystem is a community of plants, animals, and smaller organisms that live, feed, reproduce, and interact in the same area or environment. Some ecosystems are very large in size, and some are physically small, such as a meadow at the edge of a forest or a coral reef in the ocean. I have decided to write about the Baton Rouge Zoo as the natural ecosystem in my area.
The Baton Rouge Zoo was a dream of the recreation and parks commission in the early 1960’s. In 1965 taxpayers passed a millage election that provided over three-quarters of a million dollars with which was to assist in building the facility, the rest of the funds for building came from the Bureau of Outdoor Recreations. Construction began in the mid sixties, and the Zoo opened to the public on Easter Sunday of 1970.
Today BR Zoo is home to animals from around the world including tigers, elephants, flamingos, alligators, and the first black rhino to be born in Louisiana. The Baton Rouge Zoo is active in conservation programs and also participates with other Zoos around the world in thirty international species survival plans for critically endangered species. There has been three endangered animals; the Guam Rail which is a flightless bird, Arabian Oryx which is a medium sized antelope with a distinctive shoulder hump, long straight horns, and a tufted tail, and a Golden Lion Tamarin which is a small new world monkey that is related to the Callitrichidae family, all which are endangered species, have been successfully reintroduced to the wild.
Biogeochemical cycles are the movement of matter through the biotic and the a-biotic spheres of the ecosystem. Life on earth is inextricably linked to climate through a variety of interacting cycles and feedback loops. In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the extent to which human activities, such as deforestation and fossil fuel burning,