Habitat

Information about Habitat

Habitat (which is Latin for "it inhabits") is the area where a particular species lives. It is essentially the natural environment in which an organism lives—at least the physical environment—that surrounds (influences and is utilized by) a species population. We use "species population" instead of "organism" here because, while it is possible to describe the habitat of a single black bear, we generally may not find any particular or individual bear, but the grouping of bears that comprise a breeding population and occupy a certain geographical area. Further, this habitat could be somewhat different from the habitat of another group or population of black bears living elsewhere. Thus, it is neither the species, nor the individual, for which the term habitat is typically used. A microhabitat or microenvironment is the immediate surroundings and other physical factors of an individual plant or animal within its habitat.

However, the term "habitat" can be used more broadly in ecology. It was originally defined as the physical conditions that surround a species, or species population, or assemblage of species, or community (Clements and Shelford, 1939). Thus, it is not just a species population that has a habitat, but an assemblage of many species, living together in the same place that essentially share a habitat. Ecologists would regard the habitat shared by many species to be a biotope.

Habitat destruction is a major factor in causing a species population to decrease, eventually leading to its being endangered, or even to its extinction.

A biome is the set of flora and fauna which live in a habitat and occupy a certain geography.

See also

References

species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
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population is the collection of people or organisms of a particular species living in a given geographic area or mortality, and migration, though the field encompasses many dimensions of population change including the family (marriage and divorce), public health, work and the
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Ecology (also known as Oekologie, Okology, or Oekology[1],from Greek: οίκος, oikos, "household"; and λόγος, logos
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In ecology, a community is an assemblage of populations of different species, interacting with one another.

The term is used in various ways with slight differences in meaning. Sometimes it is limited to specific places, times, or subsets of organisms.
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Biotope is an English loanword derived from the German "", which in turn came from the Greek bios='life or organism' and topos='place'. (The related word geotope has made its way into the English language by the same route, from the German "".
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Habitat destruction is a process of land use change in which one habitat-type is removed and replaced with another habitat-type. In the process of land-use change, plants and animals which previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity.
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A biome is a major geographical area of ecologically similar communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, often referred to as ecosystems. Biomes are defined based on factors such as plant structures (such as trees, shrubs, and grasses), leaf types (such as broadleaf and
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A biocoenosis (alternatively, biocoenose or biocenose), termed by Karl Möbius in 1877, describes all the interacting organisms living together in a specific habitat (or biotope).
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niche (pronounced nich, neesh or nish)[] is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem[1]. The ecological niche describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (e. g.
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Ecology (also known as Oekologie, Okology, or Oekology[1],from Greek: οίκος, oikos, "household"; and λόγος, logos
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ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all the non-living physical factors of the environment.
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In evolutionary biology, fitness landscapes or adaptive landscapes are used to visualize the relationship between genotypes (or phenotypes) and reproductive success. It is assumed that every genotype has a well defined replication rate (often referred to as fitness).
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To conserve habitat life for wild species and prevent their extinction or reduction in range is a priority of a great many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology.
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Habitat fragmentation is a process of environmental change important in evolution and conservation biology. As the name implies, it describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat).
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The term habitat comes from ecology, and includes many interrelated features, especially the immediate physical environment, the urban environment or the social environment.
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Plagio climax community is an area or habitat in which the influences of the human race, have prevented the system from expanding further, an example may be in a beach dune system where the impact of the human race has caused footpath erosion to occur, affecting the
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A standing crop is the quantity or total weight or energy content of the organisms which are in a particular location at a particular time.

The standing crop is the total dry weight of all organisms.
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A wildlife corridor is a strip of habitat connecting wildlife populations separated by human activities (such as roads, development, or logging). This allows an exchange of individuals between populations, lowering inbreeding within populations and facilitating re-establishment of
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Wildlife crossings reconnect habitats, allowing animals to cross roads safely. They involve underpasses, overpasses (mainly for large or herd-type animals), viaducts, amphibian tunnels, and tunnels for small mammals such as otters, hedgehogs, and badgers.
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Frederic Edward Clements (September 16, 1874 - July 26, 1945) was an American plant ecologist and pioneer in the study of vegetation succession.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he studied botany at the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1894 and obtaining a doctorate in 1898.
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