Ecology

Introduction: Everywhere your looking Mother nature has a plan and that's what we call ecology. It's a system that when it is in ballance works very well. When the system is out of ballance the system callapses and has to find a new ballance. In nature callapses of systems does occur sometimes, but not very often most of the times systems will exist for thousands of years (rainforest, savanna's...). Therefore a lot of species can develop there. Not to be very negative, but because of people all the system around the world are balancing on the edge of the abyss. Desertification is a topic of the world. Desertification is a respons of cutting to many vegetations (especially trees and shrubs). Deep rooted plants take water up and give it to the air and there surrounding. When these plants disappear the surrounding gets dryer. Another thing waths happening is that our soils are getting poorer, because the plant - and soil organisms systems get destroyed. These organisms recycle the nutrion in the soil and are making it richer. This is because of plowing, poisoning, monocultures and creation of things like buildings and roads. Not only our land is suffering also our sea is getting poisoned by our pullusion. This is not only by the rivers, but also by air. The CO2 level in the air is so high - because of oil, burning forests and other things that are burned - the sea is getting acid and this is killing the plankton. And we can so go on for hours, but this wil not help us solve these problems. We must do something right now  because when the biggest system will callapse the environment will change so redically that the change that we people or organismes that are above 25 kg will survive is very slim. This has happend many time in the history of the world, but it could easily happen very soon again and just because of us. The sollutions are very easy and we  now how to do it.

Carbon: The most important thing is getting more carbon in our soil. This helps the organisms in the soil and makes it possible for the soil to have a better system to catch water and nutrition. By doing this the CO2 in the air will also decline. We can do this by plants and mulching. Especially trees and shrubs take a lot of carbon in. When we cut these plants parts of the roots in the ground will also die. By putting the cuttings on the ground (mulch) this carbon can get into the soil. We
should try not to burn this organic material.

Monocultures: Mother nature is perfect, but we are not. The system of mother nature is very complex and we shouldn't try to understand everything, because we can never understand everything. Therefore mother nature should be our role model. Whe shouldn't have only productive sites for us, but our places should be for more organisms and we need bufferingzones that are for mother nature to create. These zones will help our sites to stay healthy. These days we farm the most in monocultures what means we have only one plant in a field. These fields are very vulnerable for diseases and pests. This is because it's a paradise for these disease and pests organisms. For stopping these organisms we need poison. A problem for poison is that organisms can get immune and that's what they are doing. Another problem is that we can get sick of these poisons (you can't wash al the poison of the plants, because some poisons are in the cells of the plant themselves). Some poisons that are very populair these days like roundup...  are very dangerous for ourselve but also the environment. They can biodegradable, but that doesn't mean that they are safe, because the products that stay behind can also be poisonous. Some of the products are so small that they also get into the clouds and because of this they are already in our water recycling systems. These products are bad for example for our reproduction (it makes males more female and infertile). There are rivers where only female fish swim, because of these products.

Polyculture: Mother nature grows everything in a polycultures. A polyculture is a system where a lot of different plants from a lot of different families grow. Many plants support each other. These systems are very good in ceeping themselves healthy. This is because everything is in harmonie. If we can create polycultures from plants that support each other than they will also ceep themselves healthy. Every plant has a place in the system.

Niche: This is the place that a specie occupy's in the system. It's what the specie needs to be able to live there. For a plant this is the light, climate, soil, water, succession stage, competition, herbivores, the predators of the herbivores... and for animals it is wath they eat, wath they need te reproduce... Every specie is linked to other species.

Symbiotic relations: There are five different symbiotic relations. Mutualisme is a relation where both profit from the relation. Commensalism is a relation where one profits and one doesn't but also doesn't get harmed. Parasitism is a relation where one profits and one is harmed. Amensalism is a relation where one is uneffected and one is killed but not by deliberation. And the last is synnecrosis. This is a relation where both species will die because of each other. The roots of trees for example will make contact with each other for exchanging nutrition and hormones. This makes forest one big organism and makes it possible to overcome nutrion problems. An organism group that is very important for plants are fungi.

Mycorrhiza: Most plants (90%) have a direct relationship with fungi. They can live internal in plants or in the ground around the plant. Fungi wil help plants for example by exchanging water and micronutrion for sugars. Fungi form also bridges between roots from different trees so that they can rechange nutrition and hormones. Fungi help to recycle carbon and nutrion. They do this in the ground with other organisms.

Soil organisms: There is a lot of live in the first five centimetre. After this there's also live in the soil. The harmonie between fungi, bacteria, protazoa and nematoden is very important. When they are in harmonie and this is what a system always wants to achieve  than the soil can easily get very fertile. for a good harmonie in the soil these animals need organic material (carbon) and enough water. Mulch is a way to get more carbon, food and water in the soil. Next to these smal organisms there are earthworms that are very important for getting a good recycling of nutrition in the soil. There are a lot of different species of worms. The deep in de ground living earthworms get nutrition from deep in de ground to the surface. The most important thing what you shouldn't do for distroying these organisms is plowing, because than you kill this ballance and you create a pioneer stage, where a lot of species cann't grow. The only thing would you than could do for growing plants succesfully is using fertilezers, but these are also poisoning your ground and you can't fertilize your ground for ever.

Succession: When the soil is bare the first organisms that will inhabit this system will be called pioneer species (from here everything begins).Over time this bare soil will not be bare anymore and plants will be growing there and animals will be living there. The real pioneer species will be gone. Over time the eind stage  of the system will be reached. This is the climax a stage where everything is in balance. The biggest diversity exist between the pioneer and climax stage, because then there are still pioneer species and already species of that of the climax. So in this stage there are also the most food plants for us to eat.

Vegetation layers: There are a few layers of vegetation that are important for your design. In nature you have first the mulch zone. The mulchzone can also be replaced with a moslayer or small coverplants layer. In the ground you can hove tubers or bulbs. Then you got a herb plant layer, than a smal shrub layer, then a big shrub layer, then climbers, then smal trees and finally the uppermost canopy.

Density: What also is important is how close plants stand next to each other. In full sun plants can stand a lot closer to each other than in full shade. Another thing that determins this is: water, nutrition and competition. Some plants wil kill other plants for there benefit. The roots of trees are around 4-5  times so big as the branges above the ground and the same specie of tree often doesn't like to stand next to each other (apple, peach), because it makes them vulnerable for diseases and pests. When your designing your
garden you have to take this in mind. So what's under the ground is just as important as what is above.

Biodiversity: Biodiversity are different species, but also the genetic differents within a specie. How bigger the biodiversity on a site how more resilience a system is against disseases, pests and natural disasters. So when your designing a site it is importent to have a lot of different species from different families with a big genetic bank whitin the specie. This way you can protect your site.

People: People developed in a savanna landscape. In this landscape grow a lot of our food plants. Therefore people like open places in forests and edges of the woods.