An ecosystem is made up of a community of plants and animals and the environment that supplies them with raw materials for life. It can be as big as a forest stretching across a continent and as small as a tidal pool. The three major living ecosystems focused on are the mountainous regions, hot, dry deserts, and the tropical rainforests.
The conditions necessary to grow plants always depend on each plant. Not all plants are alike. They are all different and vary in color, shape, size, and how they live and produce food; yet they all have a few things in common. They all need water, food, and sunlight to stay alive and healthy, though, all plants need different amounts.
Factors of the environment can be good to plants, as well as bad. Just as penguins reproduce during the harshest weather of the arctic (to be sure of their young's survival in the better conditions), some plants do as well. Plants don't seek the survival of their offspring as animals do.
Some factors beneficial to the survival of plants are: rain, fertile soil, open areas allowing sunlight to reach the plants, and more. Plants in their natural environments, away from civilization, need rain to survive. Rain is every plant's main water source because there are no sprinklers or water systems in the wild.
Sunlight and soil help to restore minerals to the plant. It also helps it produce food. Without fertile soil, a plant is unable to grow, for its roots cannot soak in the minerals. Plants would also not be able to survive without sunlight because, for most plants, it is their source to carry out photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process of producing food and energy, by a plant, from the sun's rays.
The main two factors that may harm plant growth are: little water and little sunlight. More factors that may harm it are that of wind, cold weather, too much water, and too much sunlight.
The Rainforest and Plants Within .
Rainforests are found mostly near the equator because temperatures there are a lot higher.