The Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains truly is a unique environment filled with glorious examples of rare and wonderful flora and fauna. From the smallest of insects to the tallest of trees, the Blue Mountains has it all.

 

The Blue Mountains ecosystem is made up of a variety of different biotic and abiotic elements. These all form crucial parts of the ecosystem.

 

Biotic elements make up the living part of the ecosystem. This contains all the flora and fauna of the Blue Mountains region but also contains the microbes and bacteria. These living elements of the ecosystem are crucial in keeping it balanced and viable.

 

The abiotic elements are the non-living part of the ecosystem. This includes the Climate, Soil, Water, Sunlight, Atmosphere, Fire and Landscape. The Blue Mountains has a relatively mild climate but usually water is in relatively short supply. Its landscape is primarily identified by its sandstone plateaus and rock formations and its flora and fauna rely heavily on fire for their growth and regeneration.

 

The biodiversity of the Blue Mountains Ecosystem is also very important to its survival. Maintaining biodiversity is vital to the survival of any ecosystem because every organism, no matter how big or small has a role to play and losing any one of them in the ecosystem could be catastrophic. There are also many animals and plants that live only in the greater Blue Mountains region so losing them here would mean their extinction.

 

Both biotic and abiotic elements are vital to the survival of an ecosystem because many biotic factors rely heavily on the abiotic factors of the ecosystem. An example of this is a banksia tree. The banksia waits until a fire (an abiotic factor) comes along and creates nutrient rich ash before releasing its seeds.

 

The Blue Mountains ecosystem is a wonderful mix of biotic and abiotic factors to create an awesome experience.