When rainforests are destroyed, many species cannot survive in these areas and can vanish completely. Every species plays its own specific role within the ecosystem that it lives in. Every species consumes certain resources and is in turn eaten by other organisms higher up in the food chain. All of the organisms in an ecosystem carry out some work that keep ecosystems functioning–for example, by pollinating plants, helping dead organic matter (dead plants and animals) to decay, or by feeding on other animals. Scientists call these processes "ecosystem functions." We do not know all of the species on earth and we certainly do not know what all of them do. But we do know that if we lose species, we are in danger of losing the functions that they carry out. We, as ecologists, are interested in how different organisms interact and how these interactions affect the way that ecosystems function.

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