We explain what the components of the environment are, how they are classified and the characteristics of living beings, the atmosphere and more.
What are the components of the environment?
the environment or environment It is the natural environment that sustains life in the Land, that is, it is the set of chemical, physical and biological factors with which organisms interact on a daily basis. living beings, some of which serve the Humans to hold your economic activity and productive.
Said factors, elements or components can be of a very varied type and usually integrate cycles or transmission circuits of Matter and energy, thanks to which their presence is distributed or replenished throughout the planet. Furthermore, depending on their nature, these elements are classified into two large groups: biotic and abiotic elements.
The biotic elements are those linked to the world of life, that is, they correspond to the organisms living organisms in their very different ecological roles and levels of complexity. These elements are classified as follows:
- Organisms autotrophs or producers, who use the inorganic material to make your own organic material, like the floors.
- Organisms heterotrophs or consumers, who in order to manufacture their organic matter first need to consume that of other living beings (or their corpses), such as animals and mushrooms.
The abiotic elements, on the other hand, are those that have to do with the inanimate or non-living world, and that exist in the three physical states of matter: liquid, solid and gas. These elements are not part of living beings but are essential for the continuity of life. life, as long as they are in the right proportions. These elements are classified into:
- Sideric elements, typical of the forces that act on the planet, such as force of gravity, for instance.
- Ecogeographical elements, members of the surface or atmosphere terrestrial and determine the geography, As the relief or the flooring.
- Physicochemical elements, which make up the different substances and elements with which living beings and natural forces interact, such as the Water.
Below we will detail, in broad strokes, the elements that make up the environment and we will give specific examples of each one.
1. Living beings
Living beings are part of the environment, although we often feel like actors who make life in it, as if the environment were just the stage. But in reality our relationship with the environment is quite close: we change it and it in turn determines us.
Living beings take from the environment the nutrients necessary to exist and multiply, we return waste substances whose accumulation in our bodies would be dangerous. For example, the photosynthesis of plants absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, soil water and sunlight from the environment, in order to manufacture the sugars necessary for its metabolism, instead releasing oxygen into the atmosphere.
The animal respiration and fungi, on the other hand, carry out the opposite process: they consume oxygen from the atmosphere and use it to decompose the organic matter they consume from other living beings (whether they are plants, animals or even carrion) and thus obtain the energy necessary to live. In return, they return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Other types of organisms carry out similar or different metabolic operations, releasing other substances into the environment, such as methane, carbon dioxide or nitrates.
Among living beings, however, the human being deserves a special mention, since human economic operations are capable of generating pollution. They differ from the exchange carried out by other living beings because they are not linked to their basic metabolic functions, but to their inventiveness. In addition, they release very diverse substances and energies into the environment, some capable of dramatically altering the environment.
2. The atmosphere
The atmosphere is a homogeneous mass of gases that surround our planet, trapped in its gravity. That is why they are much denser on their surface than on top of a mountain, or even more so, in the space that separates our planet from outer space. So much so, that 75% of its mass is found in its first 11 km.
The atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and other substances such as argon, carbon dioxide, ozone and water vapor in minute percentages. This layer of gases not only contains the elements necessary for breathing and photosynthesis, but also blocks solar radiation and material objects from space, such as spacecraft, from entering the planet. meteorites.
3. The hydrosphere
With this name is known the set of liquid water found on the earth's surface (in oceans, seas, rivers and lakes) and also below it (in underground deposits).
Water in a solid or semi-solid state in the eternal ice and snow at the poles and on top of the mountains is also part of it. The presence of a hydrosphere is something unique to our planet throughout the world. Solar system, and was a determining factor, as far as we know, in the appearance of life.
The water passes between its three physical states (solid in ice, liquid in oceans and gaseous in the atmosphere as vapour) in what we know as the hydrological cycle: a circuit involving solar radiation, which heats and evaporates water, causing it to rise into the atmosphere, where as it rises it cools and condenses, forming clouds and then falling back to the earth's surface as rain.
This circuit is fundamental in maintaining the stability of the environment, since it allows the circulation of water and other elements carried by it, but it also cools and cleans the atmosphere, allowing a certain margin of climatic stability.
4. The floors
What we call soil is nothing more than the most superficial layer of the Earth crust, that is, the “skin” of our planet. In this superficial region are found all the ecosystems of the Earth and we human beings make life, who not even in our deepest excavations have managed to penetrate it. There are also rocks, minerals and materials that we extract to transform them through industrial processes.
Soils play a vital role in feeding plants and in the possibility of farming. Through the roots, plants extract from the soil the essential nutrients for their growth and reproduction, in addition to the water that the soil retains. There are different Types of soil, depending on the materials that predominate in them: clayey, rich in organic matter, rocky, sandy, limestone and sedimentary.
The terrestrial surface, in addition, varies according to the relief, presenting numerous geographical accidents such as depressions, mountains, plateaus Y plains.
5. Sunlight
The main source of Energy of the environment is, paradoxically, outside our planet. We refer to solar radiation, which comes from the Sun and permeates through the atmosphere, heating and illuminating the entire environment in different proportions, depending on the geographical location and relief.
Much of the energy thus received is stored in the atmosphere itself or captured by the world's flora. It is precisely this energy that provides the initial spark for all the circuits that sustain life.