Ecosystem | Vocabulary

0:00- [David] Hello, wordsmiths. I have to keep my voice down, you see. You've caught me observing a word in its natural habitat. Here, we can see the words at play. Nominalizing and conjugating, brachiating, snoozing, There's a waterfall of vowels. (David vocalizing) (David imitates water burbling) There's the consonant bamboo.

0:21(David imitates bamboo clacking) All of this together, all the words and the situation in which they live, it's one big ecosystem. Right. Let me back up (clears throat). (finger snaps) Ecosystem is the word we're looking at in this video. E, Co, Sys, Tem. It's a noun.

0:43It means all living and non-living things that are found in a specific environment. So if this forest I'm in (finger snaps) is a rainforest, we're talking about everything in that rainforest. Birds and monkeys, and bugs, and vines, and mosses, and rocks, and rivers.

1:00All of it together is an ecosystem. Let's talk about this words derivation. Eco is an interesting prefix because now it means having to do with the environment, but it ultimately comes from the Greek, oikos, meaning home or dwelling place. The earth is our home is the thinking there.

1:18System comes to us from Greek too, and it means the whole thing together. Basically, it's composed of word parts that mean a thing that sticks together. So an ecosystem, right, is the way a home, an environment, works all together as a single unit. The fish eat the bugs and the bugs pollinate the plants.

1:37And the plants feed the monkeys, and the monkeys distribute the seeds. A system. An ecosystem. You see? So with these two word parts, eco and system, what can you come up with? What words can you assemble? Let me give you 10 seconds, and we'll meet back here after a quick music break.

1:54All right, here we go. (upbeat music) Here are three I came up with. Ecology. This is the study of natural environments. Logy, L-O-G-Y, is a suffix that means the study of, like, biology is the study of bios, bios, life. Neurology is the study of brains. And ecology is the study of eco.

2:24The oikos, the house that we all live in called planet Earth. Economy, this is the other common word that plays on that same oikos route. Because this word has to do with money, right? But originally, it had a meaning, more like household management. The economy is the way business behaves for a whole country, right?

2:43How's the economy doing? But it's playing on the idea of a household budget. How much was a dozen eggs this week? How much was a can of coconut milk, a jar of peanut butter? And systematic, methodical, doing something efficiently. Applying a system to how you do something.

2:59Let's say I'm systematic about making breakfast sandwiches. Maybe I'll bake a whole tray of eggs and cut 'em into squares, and put 'em on the little buns. I got a system. I'm being systematic. And let's be systematic about teaching you the meaning of ecosystem by using it in a sentence or two.

3:15"In a Pacific kelp forest ecosystem, sea otters eat kelp-hungry sea urchins." This is the sort of environment it is, right? It's an undersea forest, and it's not just the kelp, it's everything present there. From the algae and the sand, and the rocks, and the seawater to the living creatures.

3:33You have to back up and see all of them working in concert. It's all connected. Here's another one. "Vultures provide an essential ecosystem service by eating carrion," by eating dead things. I realize now that my vulture looks more like a dodo. I love the fluffy ruff that vultures have at the base of their necks.

3:54Anyway, vultures are contributing to the functioning of the ecosystem by eating carrion. You're a part of it too, by the way. You're part of an ecosystem of learners and knowledge, and rocks, and moss, and vultures, and otters, and sea urchins, and bugs, and monkeys.

4:13You are connected to it too, and may that knowledge give you strength. You can learn anything. David out.