Symposium Introduction

The main function of the biosphere is to ensure the cycle of chemical elements, which is expressed in the circulation of substances between the atmosphere, soil, hydrosphere, and living organisms.

Ecosystems - a community of organisms associated with the inorganic medium closely the material and energy linkages. Plants may exist only through a steady flow of them carbon dioxide, water, oxygen and mineral salts. In any given locality stocks inorganic compounds necessary for life support organisms inhabiting it, would be enough for long, if these stocks are not resumed. Return of nutrients in the environment occurs during living organisms (as a result of respiration, excretion, defecation), and after their death, due to the decomposition of corpses and plant residues. So way, the community becomes a medium with inorganic system, a stream of atoms, caused by the activity of organisms, has tendency to lock himself into the maelstrom.

Any set of organisms and inorganic components, which may be the cycling of matter, called the ecosystem. This term was proposed in 1935 by the British ecologist AG Tensli, who emphasized that with this approach, inorganic and organic factors act as equal parts, and we can not separate the organisms from a particular environment. A. Tensli view ecosystems as the basic unit nature of the Earth's surface, although they do not have a certain amount and could cover the space of any length.