“Biome” and “ecosystem” are words sometimes used interchangeably to describe a specific type of environment, but this is an erroneous conflation. While the exact nature of the world’s biomes is a matter of some debate, they relate to one another in that they both break the globe down into smaller components based on features of the environment.
Size Does Matter
The main different between biomes and ecosystems is size. While only a few types of biome exist, describing the different major habitats of the world, many different ecosystems spread over the face of the Earth. When ecosystems are quite similar in nature, they are said to belong to the same biome, even while remaining separate from one another. Therefore, while an ecosystem cannot contain a biome, biomes usually contain several or even many ecosystems of the same general type.
No official biome count exists. According to the University of Santa Barbara, some scientists only recognize aquatic, desert, forest, grassland and tundra biomes. Other lists include several more, distinguishing between temperate forests, tropical rainforests and tropical dry forests, for example. Others might break down the aquatic biome into freshwater, freshwater wetlands, marine, coral reef and estuary biomes. More distinct biome types include mountain or alpine biomes, island biomes -- often associated with the marine or ocean biome -- and the chaparral, which describes flat areas, rocky hills and mountain slopes.
Ecosystems can be very small, sometimes no larger than a single puddle. An ecosystem is not a place like a biome is, but rather the set of interactions between the living things in that place. The way the plants, animals and other living organisms such as bacteria and funguses interact with the resources of that ecosystem -- water, sunlight and soil, for instance -- determine how the ecosystem functions.
Within a specific ecosystem, living things perform different roles. Producers, for example, make food using energy from sunlight. Most producers are plants. Consumers are organisms that eat other organisms. Instead of producing their own energy, these animals ingest plants and animals to use their energy instead. Scavengers eat dead material, while decomposers help to break down material into soil substances in which plants can grow and animals can live. This energy cycle is an important part of what keeps ecosystems and biomes going.
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