See also reforestation. An item that is made to be used once and then thrown away. Disposable items, like paper plates or plastic forks and knives, create unnecessary garbage. It is almost always better for the environment when you choose reusable items, like china plates and silverware, instead. A community of plants and animals in an environment that supplies them with the raw materials they need to live, such as chemical elements and water.
Ecosystems are the basic ecological units within the biosphere.
They may be as small as a tidal pool or a rotting log or as large as an ocean or a continent-spanning forest. The periodic phenomenon involving the warming of a mass of water in the Pacific Ocean along with a weakening of the trade winds near the equator. The movement of this warm water toward South America causes changes in weather patterns all over the world. These changes often have damaging effects, such as droughts in Latin America, Africa, and Australia, and extraordinary typhoons in Polynesia. A species of animal that is overhunted by people or whose food needs are not met will not survive.