ECOLOGY

                                                 Habitat

A habitat is the natural home of a living thing where it lives and reproduce. Some examples of  habitats are a lake, river or spring. A wide variety of  microscopic animals is found in a habitat. A place is suitable to be the habitat of an organism  if it contain the amount of food needed, shelter from attackers, protection from bad weather and a place for reproducing, nest or hibernation. Everything around an organism that influence its way of life is called its environment. The environment of an organism can be further classified into physical and biotic environment. The physical environment is comprised of physical factors which are non-living such as water, minerals, temperature, light, air and pH value. The biotic environment comprises of other living things which in any way affects  the life of the organism. The study of living organisms and their environment is called ecology.                                              

The Physical Environment

The  temperature of a place plays an important role in changing the physical environment of that place. It affects the types of organisms which will live there.

                                                                                         Light

All green plants use light energy from sun to make their own food in the process of photosynthesis. Most of the life on Earth depend on plants for food in two ways; directly or indirectly. They also depend on light for surviving. Light also helps living things to see so that they can move from one place to  another to find food and detect danger. Some  organisms such as earthworm prefer to live in dark. They have special features to live in a dark place. Insects such as fireflies and deep-sea fish produce their own light by mixing chemicals in them.

Temperature

The  heat received from the sun affects the temperature of a place. Most organisms are active at temperatures between 0 degree C and 45 degree C. Temperature also affects the process of reproduction in plants. Some plants will not develop seeds until they are subjected to certain temperatures for a period of time.

                                                                                        The Biotic Environment

No man is an island. This is not true for man it is also true for other living organisms . Each organism is dependant on other organism by means of feeding, competing with them for food, light, water, air and minerals. The relationships between organisms include

predator - prey relationship,  mutualism,commensalism,parasitism.