He introduced the term in his paper "The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms," published in the journal *Ecology*.
Tansley defined an ecosystem as "the whole system, including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment."
He emphasized the interconnectedness of living organisms (biotic factors) and their non-living surroundings (abiotic factors) as a single functional unit.
