Final answer:
In ecology, an ecosystem includes interactions between living organisms and environmental factors, with each species occupying a unique ecological niche. Community ecology studies interspecies interactions, while population ecology focuses on population dynamics. Analyzing ecosystems involves understanding complex relationships like predation and competition and can also aid conservation efforts.
Step-by-step explanation:
An ecosystem consists of living organisms (biotic components) and nonliving environmental factors (abiotic components) that interact with each other. Every species within an ecosystem occupies a unique ecological niche, defined as the role a species plays in its environment, including how it gets its energy and nutrients and how it interacts with other biotic and abiotic factors.
Community ecology is concerned with the processes and consequences of the interactions between different species whereas population ecology studies the number of individuals and the changes in population size over time. For instance, when studying a population's dynamics, ecologists may look at birth and death rates to determine if a population is experiencing growth or decline.
Understanding the interactions within an ecosystem can be complex as it includes various factors such as predator-prey relationships, competition between species, symbiotic partnerships, and the effects of abiotic factors like climate and soil composition. For instance, studying the adaptation of wild lupine plants to fire regimes can contribute to the conservation of the endangered Karner blue butterfly, which depends on these plants.