Habitat

Habitat

Definition of Habitat

A place or location where a living organism normally resides

More About Habitat

  • Habitat of a species is the natural environment or the physical surroundings where they live
  • A habitat is not restricted to only one species, but the living organisms, that include all kinds of flora and fauna, may share and live in one habitat
  • The habitat size can be as small as a piece of stale bread on which the fungus grows, and as big as the forest, with trees
  • Huge mountains, marshy lands, polar regions, wet oceans and dry deserts too are habitat for living organisms
  • Habitat varies from species to species and even in sub species
  • Habitat is an ecological unit of any ecosystem, and describes the characteristic of a living organism
  • The organisms get adapted to their habitat, and continue their survival
  • A habitat constitutes of both the biotic (living) and abiotic (non living) factors

1) Terrestrial habitat: The organisms inhabiting this habitat live entirely on land

2) Aquatic habitat: The organisms that inhabit the water bodies

  • The biotic factors include the presence of the food, the prey and the predators
  • The abiotic factors include the water, soil, air, temperature, humidity, light
  • The habitat keep constantly changing either very slowly or even suddenly due to fire storms, climate changes and global warming
  • The phylum Arthropoda includes organisms from all kinds of habitat, such as fresh water, marine water, brackish water and terrestrial
  • Coral reefs are considered as the world’s most diverse habitat
  • Habitats are broadly classified as follows
    • Forests, grassland, deserts are types of terrestrial habitat. Example: Terrestrial animals include, ants, flies, tetrapods. Terrestrial plants include all the plants that we see around us.
    • These include the freshwater ,marine water, brackish water animals and plants
      Examples of the animals inhabiting aquatic habitat are freshwater and marine Fishes, sea birds, dolphins, sharks
      Examples of the plants in the aquatic habitat are water lilies, lotus, papyrus, pistia
    • In contrast to the broad definition of habitat, there exists microhabitat also
      A microhabitat is the small part of residence in a habitat
      For example : Lactobacillus bacteria in a bowl of curd
      A log of wood in the forest
      A flower on a plant

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