Author’s Note Ponds and other wetlands provide homes for plants and animals around the world. A pond is one kind of ecosystem —an interconnected community of organisms that interact with one another and with their environment. If you look back through the story, you’ll find many examples of those interactions—from the blackbird gathering grass for her nest to the many animals eating plants and other animals as part of the food chain. In a pond ecosystem, producers like plants and plankton make their own food using sunlight, water, carbon dioxide from the air, and nutrients from the soil or water. Herbivores like the fish, birds, beavers, and moose in this story get their energy from eating plants. Carnivores—like the great blue heron, otter, and raccoon—eat both plants and animals. At the bottom of the pond are decomposers—bacteria and fungi that break down dead and decayed plants and animals to return nutrients to the soil so the cycle can start all over again. Sometimes, ecosystems are threatened by pollution or loss of habitat, but when things are going well, every organism has a job to do, and together, they keep their pond healthy. This story was inspired by a canoe trip on Barnum Pond at the Paul Smith’s College Visitor Interpretive Center in the Adirondack Mountains.
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