- What are the biotic factors?
- Relationships between biotic factors
- Classification of biotic factors
- Examples of biotic factors
- Biotic and abiotic factors
We explain what biotic factors are and how they are classified. Examples of biotic factors and how they are related to abiotic ones.
What are the biotic factors?
Biotic factors are all those that have life, that is, that they are contemplated in one of the kingdoms of life and whose interactions aim at survival and reproduction from his species. In other words, biotic factors are all living beings that are part of a ecosystem and all the interactions that occur between them. They usually refer to what is contemplated in the flora and fauna of a given environment, but also include the mushrooms and the microorganisms.
Biotic factors are commonly organized into populations, that is, sets of individuals of the same species that share a habitat specific. In turn, the populations of the same site interact with each other forming a community.
Relationships between biotic factors
Sharing an environment results in the establishment of different types of relationships between biotic factors.
- Among the same species:
- Competition relations (by the food, by space or by other resources).
- Relationships of cooperation (to protect themselves from predators, to orient themselves in migratory processes or to divide the work).
- Between different species (interspecific)
- Competition relationships for the same resources: food, light, space, humidity, etc.
- Relationships that are detrimental to any of the species: predation, herbivory, parasitoidism.
- Relationships that involve obtaining a benefit for both: from mutualism Y symbiosis.
- Relationships in which one of the species involved obtains a benefit or a harm while the other is neither favored nor harmed: commensalism and the amensalism respectively.
The food relationships that occur between living beings that share a habitat are represented in Trophic chains (or food chains) that reflect the flow of matter Y Energy in the ecosystems.
Biotic factors are distinguished from abiotic factors in that the latter are inert, that is, they are not related to life but to the surrounding matter and its processes (chemical, climatic, physical, etc.) are non-organic. Abiotic factors are those that determine the physical environment in which living beings inhabit.
Classification of biotic factors
Biotic factors can be classified into three types, based on the way they feed and their place in food chains:
- Producer organizations. Also called autotrophs, these living beings are capable of producing their own food from inorganic material and a source of Energy. Producing organisms can be of two types:
- Photoautotrophs. They are those who make their food through photosynthesis, a process by which they synthesize sugars from carbon dioxide Y Water, taking advantage of the light. For example: plants.
- Chemoautotrophs. They are those who obtain the energy to make their food from different exothermic chemical reactions of inorganic compounds. Unlike photoautotrophs, these organisms do not use water in the chemosynthesis process and do not produce oxygen. This group includes some bacteria living in extreme environments.
- Consumer organizations. Also called heterotrophs, are those living beings that need to feed on others, that is, they must consume organic material to hold your metabolism and they get it from other living beings. Consumers can be of two types:
- Herbivores. They are those that feed on producing organisms, for example, they eat plants, seeds, roots, algae or vegetables. This group includes from small animals, such as the rabbit, to other large ones such as the giraffe.
- Carnivores. They are those that feed on other consuming organisms (herbivores or even other carnivores). This group includes from insects and arachnids, to large mammals, As the Lion.
- Detritivores. Also called detritus, they feed on detritus, which is dead organic matter. This includes corpses, litter and feces. Within this group are the protozoa, worms, mollusks, crustaceans, myriapods (such as millipedes) and a wide variety of insects such as beetles and flies.
- Decomposing organisms. Also called saprotrophs, they are those living beings that are supplied with energy from the organic matter present in the corpses and body remains of all members of the food chain, and carry out the process of "recycling" of the matter and energy. In general terms they release molecules simple, such as carbon dioxide and mineral salts, which can be reused by producers. This group includes microbial heterotrophs such as bacteria, fungi and yeast.
Examples of biotic factors
Some examples of biotic factors can be:
- The forests. They are large agglomerations of trees of different sizes and strata, which serve as habitat to much animals and supply constant organic matter to the detritophages of the I usually.
- The mushrooms Y bacteria. They are two of the great types of decomposers, which obtain energy from dead organic matter (dead leaves, pieces of bark, remains of dead animals, shedding of skin, excrement) and assimilate all the nutrients present in it, leaving the rest at the disposal of the producing organisms.
- The big ones predators. They are the big cats, snakes, prey birds, that is to say, the large consumers of animal meat, who feed exclusively on smaller animals. They keep populations in check and eventually die, adding to organic matter by Recycle.
- Phytoplankton. Present only in aquatic environments, it is a variety of photosynthetic microorganisms, mostly algae and floating cyanobacteria, which form the basis of most aquatic food webs. They are food for larger organisms like fish, crustaceans (krill) and even large animals such as Whales.
- The herbivores good size. They are those that feed on tons of plant organic matter, which later serves as sustenance for the great predators and the scavengers that will come later. Some large herbivores include oxen, antelope, elephants and the nus.
Biotic and abiotic factors
Biotic and abiotic factors are distinguished in that biotics have to do with life forms and their relationships, while abiotic ones are related to the physicochemical characteristics of an ecosystem. Thus, while animals and plants are biotic factors, the pH of the soil, the weather and the composition of the soil are abiotic factors.
However, both types of factors are strongly linked, since the state of one is reflected in the other. The chemical composition of the soil, for example, directly affects its fertility and, therefore, its ability to support plant life, which in turn will support consumers and detritophages. But the existence of these life forms will, over time, add layers of organic matter to the soil, keeping it fertile and rich in nutrients that in turn will fix its chemical composition.
In conclusion, we can affirm that biotic and abiotic factors are fundamental for the development of species and their habitat: it is not possible to conceive the existence of one without the other.