An organism gets every component it needs to survive from its environment. An organism’s environment consists of two major types of components, i.e. abiotic or biotic components.
To raise and emulate organisms gets energy sources and material from their environment.
All the living organisms that inhabit an environment obtain food, energy sources (sunlight), land, air, water and shelter(habitat) from their environment.
All of life on earth exists in a region known as the biosphere.
Ecosystem and ecological roles of different organisms
A significant biological abstraction which associates the living or organic and the inert is titled an ecosystem.
Every organism has its evolutionary and ecological role in the environment.
Each organism in the environment is distinguished by its biodiversity including smaller insects and bacteria as they have a significant evolutionary and ecological role.
Table of Contents
Constituents of environment
The environment is composed of living(biotic) and non-living (abiotic) components.
Non-living or abiotic constituents
The azoic components of the environment are non-living constituents but they have a significant role in the proper functioning of nature and natural systems on earth.
The nonliving environment includes energy and material. The energy may be in the form of sunlight and chemical energy. Physical substances or materials comprise water, air, temperature, land, rainfall and atmospheric gasses.
Living or biotic constituents
The living constituents of the environment or ecosystem are branched into heterotrophic and autotrophic constituents based on the production of energy or food.
Heterotrophic constituents
Heterotrophic constituents cannot make their food or source of energy. They depend on autotrophic constituents of the environment to obtain food.
Heterotrophic constituents include a series of consumers such as primary, secondary and tertiary consumers and microbes (decomposers).
Autotrophic constituents
Autotrophic constituents of the environment can produce their food and food sources for other living organisms (heterotrophs). Autotrophic constituents include plants, fungi and a few bacteria.
Compelling arrangements of ecosystem
The ecosystem is a significant and certain compelling arrangement of non-living and living parts.
Living and non-living components of the environment operate as an open, developing and stratified system. The living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem interact in a convoluted web but there is a charismatic equilibrium between these living and nonliving parts (Gómez-Márquez.,2022).
If elements are to be recycled in nature which organisms must be present.
If elements are to be recycled in nature decomposers must be present.
In the primary productivity of the ecosystem, decomposers play a vital role by their benefaction to the recycling of elements (chemical).
Elements such as phosphorus and nitrogen are confined in nature for primary producers. Decomposers include bacteria and worms that rival primary producers for taking up limiting elements including phosphorus, carbon and nitrogen.
Stoichiometry of elements
The competition between decomposers and primary producers is an outcome of stereo-chemistry on nitrogen and other elements in the conversion of matter between decomposers and primary producers.
The elemental or nutrient rate of primary producers is greater than decomposers. When decomposers obtain their energy from an insufficient element or source they conserve equilibrium.
When a living organism pictures (animal or plant) succumbs, energy and matter are obtained from its remains.
By definition, living organisms that obtain their energy by consuming organic waste and remains of dead organisms are termed decomposers.
What happens to organisms that cannot get the resources they need?
An organism that cannot get the resources they need, it may die or suffer.
All living organisms live interconnectedly in their environment and they compete with one another for resources including food, shelter, land and water.
The loss of resources living organisms need to survive results in their extinction or endangered species. The area where an organism lives is called its habitat.
Interaction between living organisms
Living organisms interact in many ways in the ecosystem. Their interaction is sometimes beneficial for both inter-actors and dangerous for one or both inter-actors.
All environments on earth that support life provide opportunities of growth to living organisms so that they can interact with one another to sustain themselves.
An example of beneficial interaction is the interaction between humans and bacteria present in their intestines which is known as symbiosis. The interaction between living organisms can cause harm to one partner.
An example of this is infectious diseases and fleas that live on the body of living organisms.
Habitat definition biology
The physical location where an organism lives is termed its habitat. Species undergo their decline because of many factors including loss of genetic variation and habitat. The role of a species in an ecosystem includes serving as a link in a food chain within a habitat.
All Living organisms in a habitat are losing their places because of anthropogenic activities.
The physical environment of an organism
The environmental setting to which a species is adapted is its ecological niche. The physical environment of an organism includes a-biotic and non-living factors. The non-living factors include soil, temperature, water, habitat, climate and rainfall. Other organisms are not a part of the physical environment.
The geographic study of living organisms is biogeography.
Open system
Living things in an ecosystem works in an open system and continuous processes of exchanging matter and energy are the parts of the ecosystem.
Energy and matter are continuously changing from one form to another. Energy enters the earth in the form of sunlight and goes back to the atmosphere in the form of heat.
Carbon enters the ecosystem in the form of carbon dioxide and the result of the process of respiration carbon dioxide moves back to the atmosphere bringing heat and Adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
Which of the following is a correct statement about an organism and its environment?
A correct statement about an organism and its environment is the location of ecosystem affects the type of organism able to survive there.
FAQ
Which is not part of an organism’s environment?
Any man made structure is not part of an organism’s natural environment.