We explain what flora and fauna are and what their main elements are. Also, what are the native flora and fauna.
What are flora and fauna?
Both flora and fauna are types of biotic elements of a ecosystem that is, they are living elements that integrate and in many cases constitute a biome specific to our planet.
These terms, separately or together, are used to refer to the specific type of life of a specific geographical region or country: when we refer to flora, we refer to plant life (trees, shrubs, mushrooms, bacteria photosynthetic, etc.); and when we refer to fauna, well, to the animal (reptiles, mammals, birds, protozoa, insects, etc.). In both cases they are life forms adapted to the particular conditions of the environment to which we refer.
The relationships between flora and fauna are key to determining how the life in a certain place, be it a habitat submarine a jungle Amazonica or the intestinal entrails of a complex organism, such as the human body. In general, the flora involves the producer organisms, whether photosynthetic or not, and the fauna instead to the consumers in its different levels of trophic organization:herbivores, predators Y decomposers.
Both categories are useful for the study from different perspectives and disciplines of a region given that life is one of the elements that most chemically and physically modify the environment, along with the erosion and other natural phenomena of the planet.
Native flora and fauna
On the other hand, we speak of autochthonous flora and / or autochthonous fauna when it is desired to refer to plant and animal life, respectively, which is exclusive to a geographic region.
Since life migrates and spreads, and also changes in the weather, the categories of the autochthonous attempt to define the native species"that is, unique to a place, often to understand their kinship ties with other better known ones, or to draw attention to their uniqueness in terms of preservation of the biodiversity of the planet.
Thus, a region can have rich or poor native flora or fauna, depending on whether the level of diversity of the species that make life in their spaces.
The general impoverishment of biodiversity, as species become extinct due to the pollution or destruction of their habitat, is one of the main ecological problems facing the post-industrial world, and of which the Humans we are largely responsible.