Abiotic & Biotic Factors
Cards (9)
- Abiotic & Biotic Factors:
- The environment in which communities of plants and animals live changes all the time
- These changes are caused by abiotic (non-living) and biotic (living) factors
- These factors affect communities in different ways, for example
- For some species, certain factors may cause their population size to increase, whereas for other species, that same change may cause their population size to decrease
- For some species, certain factors may cause the distribution of their populations (i.e. where they live) to change
- Abiotic factors:
- In Biology, ‘abiotic’ means non-living
- An abiotic factor is a non-living factor within an environment such as temperature, light intensity and water availability
- An example of an abiotic factor is a high soil pH which is unsuitable for wild azaleas to grow
- Wild azaleas prefer a soil pH of 4.5 to 6.5
- Azaleas would need to find another habitat
- The table below explains how these abiotic factors may affect a community of organisms
- One abiotic factor not included in this table is the presence and levels of pollutants, which can change the size and distribution of populations of certain species
- For example, some lichen species are very sensitive to air pollution and are not able to grow if the concentration of sulfur dioxide (an air pollutant) rises above a certain level
- Abiotic Factors that Affect Communities Table:
- Abiotic Factors that Affect Communities Table:
- Biotic factors:
- In Biology, ‘biotic’ means living
- A biotic factor is a living factor in the environment such as competition, predation, camouflage and disease
- An example of a biotic factor is the chameleon, whose camouflaged skin makes it a very effective predator of insects, thus reducing the insect species' populations
- More examples of biotic factors are shown in the table below
- Biotic Factors that Affect Communities Table:
- Biotic Factors that Affect Communities Table:
- Biotic Factors that Affect Communities Table: