Ecosystems

For our next challenge I would like you to think about biological communities, that is: communities of animal and/or plant life. These are not really ecosystems as those consist also of the inorganic components of the environment. "Ecosystems" is just a catchier title for our challenge. A biological community is just the living members of an ecosystem, that is animals and plants, living together in some way.

The definition of a biological community is actually “an interacting group of various species in a common location. For example, a forest of trees and undergrowth plants, inhabited by animals and rooted in soil containing bacteria and fungi, constitutes a biological community.” (Britannica.com). For our purposes, I would also count in animal or plant communities made up of the same species.

There are countless inspiring examples to be found: a flock of birds or a school of fish, bee hives, ant nests, any group of animals living together, trees that communicate with each other, fungi.

The graphic lines of a group of penguins, the sounds that a pod of whales makes to communicate, the chemicals that animals exchange for communication, the symbiose between an Egyptian plover bird and the crocodile which teeth it cleans.

You can get inspired by the living organisms themselves, their buildings or communal living spaces, their interactions (between species: predator, mutual symbiose, parasitism), their communication.

I hope your ideas are already flowing and you get inspired by thinking about non-human communities in our natural world.