We may imagine nature to be a living, functioning system in which every single cell plays many roles, within which the matter and energy flow, and inside which information is processed.

Imagine, that the laws of economy researched by humans have been operating in nature for millions of years. For millions of years nature-economy keeps working supplied with energy of the Sun and using of the matter from the surface of the Earth. It has lived through many crises, sudden slumps and booms, proportions of its components and directions of its development have changed, but never has it stopped operating and it always was subject to the same laws. Laws of nature are as unchangeable and impossible to be ignored as the laws of physics. However, the former are much less known than the latter and we often try to get round them!

Everything is important in nature!
There are no elements in nature which are redundant or insignificant. Every single organism is an element of the global flow of the matter, energy and information. Every single organism changes and influences this flow in its own way. Every event, which takes place in nature, has its numerous consequences of various kind and size. All these make nature – this surprisingly changeable and dynamic environment of our life – live and change continuously.

From the moment life on the Earth began, it has existed ceaselessly, so that all living creatures which used to make up and shape nature (via co-operation!) millions of years ago, left their trace, the "footprint" of their existence. Thus, all that is left from the previous epochs influence the changes which happen in nature nowadays. Moreover, all that has happened in nature, and all that is happening now have influence on ourselves, as we are part of this system, operating without a single break for millions of years.

It is often difficult to comprehend, that distant events, which seem to have nothing in common, do influence the shape of nature, and our lives. Once I have seen  a TV programme, a documentary, which is a perfect example of how events, which may at first glance seem insignificant and have nothing in common, turn out to have serious consequences.

In some American town golfers started to go down with a serious virus disease. According to the statistics, the less experienced a golfer, the biggest the danger for him of her to get ill; meanwhile the best golfers did not get ill at all. How did it happen, that poor golfers were endangered by the virus, while the good ones had nothing to worry about? The answer appears to be trivial. The virus was transmitted to people by ticks dwelling in the bushes on the golf field. Good players directed their golf balls straight to the holes, while the poor ones were often forced to search their balls in the bushes where they were attacked by ticks. The more often they searched the bushes (i.e. the less experienced golfers they were) the biggest threat for them to be bitten by a tick and infected by the virus, which could lead to serious disease or even death. Thus in such circumstances (created by nature itself) the lack of experience may be fatal for a golfer.

One should bear this example in mind, when contemplating the influence of our actions on nature, and the other way round. Factors which seem insignificant, events which seem not to be linked in any way, consequences we ignore, in given circumstances may have unpredictable results. Obviously, not all of them are fatal, there are some profitable ones or ones, which remain unnoticed. Nonetheless, the great majority of them cannot be predicted. Why? Because we know too little about nature, there are too many co-related factors and the number of possible results is simply unimaginable.

Nature as an ecosystem
Ecosystem is a distinguished part of nature (separated in some noticeable way). Ecosystem works as one ecological unit, and it is always made up of two major elements: 1) living organisms and 2) the inanimate environment i.e. water, soil, rock, air. Scientists call the living part of ecosystem – biocenosis and the inanimate environment – biotope.

The Universe is an ecosystem in most general sense – with the Sun as its most important element providing almost all energy necessary to maintain life on earth. Gravitation controls the motion of our planet, and the Sun regulates the rhythms of natural phenomena on the Earth. All oceans linked together can also be called an ecosystem. A single pond, an island or  a meadow can be called ecosystems. An ecosystem must form a self-regulating unit. It seldom happens that we are able to mark out the borders of a given ecosystem. Even an island in the middle of the ocean – though it may seen completely isolated – is linked with the ocean or even with the remote lands in a multitude of ways.

Thus, the size of a given "ecological community" does not determine whether it can be called an ecosystem. It must be a functioning "system" – an organized, self-regulating unit with living organisms influencing one another and taking advantage of their environment. It is vital to remember that nature is well-organized, in is functioning incessantly and all its elements influence one another, simultaneously regulating the processes they take part in, and together shaping the ever changing nature.

Ecosystem is something more that a collection of living creatures and elements of their inanimate environment. It is a system – made up of these creatures and elements – which never stops working, with energy, matter and information flowing through it. None of the ecosystems on earth is a closed unit. Although the matter, energy and information circulate within every ecosystem so that we view it as a distinguishable entity, it always operates together with other, neighbouring ecosystems. Together they make up one huge system with matter, energy and information flowing through it.