The four ecosystem foundation blocks checklist

WATER CYCLE:

1. Are you in a brittle or non-brittle environment?
2. What evidence of erosion have you noted?
3. Is rain falling on bare ground?
4. Does rain feed plants and recharge groundwater?
5. Do you have seasonal or all year round springs and streams?
6. How much plant cover is there on the soil?

MINERAL CYCLE:

1. Are nutrients available to living things?
2. Are nutrients locked in standing dead plants?
3. Do nutrients escape trough burning or erosion?
4. Are soils bare or covered?
5. Is soil biologically active?

ENERGY FLOW:

1. How many levels of leafy plants are there to capture sunlight and transfrom it into food for the ecosystem?
2. How much sunlight is wsted striking dead growth or bare ground?
3. How much sunlight is captured in broad leafed form?
4. How much sunlight is captured in needle leafed form?
5. Is sunligh being used for maximum photosynthesis in this system?

SUCCESSION:

1. Is the system at a weedy stage - in other words a low successional stage? Low succession is characterised by few species,but many numbers of those species.
2. Do you observe a limited number of species - i.e. low diversity?
3. Or do you observe high diversity and many different levels of plant growth?
4. Do you see signs of system plant community development?You are looking for seedlings and medium aged as well as mature plants of the same species to determine whether the ecosystem is developing?
5. Do humans keep the system at a low succession by mono-cropping,burning or allowing invasive species to dominate?