Habitat

In ecology, habitat is the area or natural environment in which a particular species
of living organism lives.
A specie’s habitat is those places where it can find:
a)Food
b)Shelter
c)Space
d)Mates for reproduction
• Components of Habitat: Habitat is made up of 1) Abiotic factors 2) Biotic
factors
1)Abiotic Factors: These are non-living components which are essential for life.
These include:
a)Soil b)Moisture c)Range of temperature d)Availability of light.
2)Biotic Factors: These include the presence or absence of other living
organisms and predators.
 Habitat
• Size of Habitat:
A habitat can be as large as an ocean or as small as a twig of a plant.
• Habitats of Different Organisms:
The habitat of earthworm is the moist garden soil and that of a cactus is a desert. More
than one plant or animal may live in a particular habitat.
• Habitat needs:
Every organism has certain habitat needs for the conditions in which it will thrive. Some
organisms are tolerant of wide variations while others are very specific in their
requirements.
• A habitat is not necessarily a geographical area:
 It can be the interior of a stem, a rock or a dump of moss or a rotten log. For parasitic
organisms, its habitat is the body of its host or some part of the host’s body such as the
digestive tract or a single cell within the body of the host.
 Types of Habitat
Terrestrial vegetation type may be forest, grassland or desert.
1)Forest: Forest is the habitat for a)American Crow b)Red Fox
c)Red squirrel
2)Desert: Organisms like Camel, Kangaroo rat and coyote inhabit the
desert habitat.
3)Freshwater habitats: These include a)Streams b)Rivers c)Lakes
d)Ponds
4)Marine habitats: These include a)Salt marshes b)Sea bed c)Deep
waters
5)Sea: Below the sea is a habitat for a)Starfish b)Jellyfish c)Sea
Urchin
6)Iceland: Iceland is a habitat for a)Penguins b)Fish c)Sharks
Types of Habitat
 Habitat
• Consistency of Habitats: Habitats change overtime. This may be due to violent events
such as eruption of volcanoes, wildfire, change in the climate and different weather patterns
which bring changes of precipitation and solar radiations. Other changes come as a direct
result of human activities like deforestation and diversion and damming of rivers.
• Microhabitats: A microhabitat is a small scale physical requirements of a particular
organism or population. Any environment is divided up into many, possibly thousands of
microhabitats with slight differences in exposure to light, humidity, air movement,
temperature and other factors. One example is the different microhabitats in a forest.
• Microhabitats in a forest: There are numerous different microhabitats in a forest like the
a)Coniferous trees b)Broad leafed trees c)Woodlands d)Scattered trees
In a tree, it consists of the a)Tree trunk b)Branch c)Twig d)Bud e)Leaf f)Flower
• Extreme Habitats:
1)In addition to mesophilic environments, there also exist some extreme environments
which are unsuitable for most higher life forms.
These extreme habitats are inhabited by some microbes like Psychrophiles are bacteria
living half a mile below the Ice of Antarctica.
 Niche
The term ‘Ecological Niche’ refers not only to the physical place occupied by an
organism but also its functional role in the community. Ecological niche means to determine
the organism’s status in a community i.e its mode of nutrition, energy resource, effect of
organism on other species.
• Properties of Niche: A niche must have these properties a)Habitat b)Behaviour of
the organism c)Food source d)Colonization e)Environment f)Abiotic factors
Organisms with the same niche cannot live together without competition.
• Gause’s Competitive Exclusion Principle: The notion that no two species can
coexist if they occupy the same niche is called Gause’s competitive exclusion principle. No
two single species can be there in one and the same niche.
One species needs to be dominant over another. One will take over another’s position for their
replacement. This phenomena is called as the Competitive Exclusion principle.
Niche
 Types of Niche
There are two types of niche.
1)Fundamental Niche: The niche that an organism occupy in the absence of
competitors and predators is called its fundamental niche. Fundamental niche is where an
organism can be. It is theoretical.
2)Realized Niche: Realized niche is what role an organism actually plays in a
community. It is the exact niche where the organisms are placed in reality. It is the exact
niche which an organism really belongs to. It is practical.
In real life, the realized niche of an organism is smaller than its fundamental niche.
Ecological Compression: When several competitors invade a habitat i.e there are a
greater number of competing species, each species should concentrate its search efforts for
food on a smaller part of the total available habitat-so called ecological compression.
Resource Partitioning: When two or more species have the same niche and in order to
minimize the competition among them, they divide out a resource such as food or habitat-
resource partitioning is said to occur.
 Competition In a Niche
Competition and Niche: Competition can have significant ecological influences on the niches of
species. Interspecific competition may lower the population size of a particular species that is not able to
avail the limited resources.
Types of interspecific competition on the basis of mechanism: These are:
1)Exploitative Competition: In Exploitative competition, one species consumes and either reduces
or more efficiently uses the resources, making them insufficient or no longer available to the competing
species.
2)Interference Competition: Interference competition refers to the direct interaction of a particular
species with its competing species to obtain the resources.
Possible Effects: As a result of these competitions there may be:
i)Limit in population sizes
ii)Change in communities
Predation: Interaction where an organism captures and feeds on other organisms.
Example: Tiger Hunting
 Symbiosis
• A relationship where two species live together closely.
Ectosymbiosis: In this type of symbiosis in which the symbiont lives on the body surface of the host.
Endosymbiosis: A type of symbiosis in which one organism lives inside the other, the two typically
behaving as a single organism
It has three main types.
1)Mutualism: Symbiosis in which both organisms get benefit.
Example: Flowers and their pollinators
2)Commensalism: Symbiosis in which an organism gets benefit and the other is helped nor harmed.
Examples: i)Barnacles on a whale top
ii)Birds nesting in trees
3)Parasitism: Symbiosis in which one organism is helped and the other is harmed.
Example: Fleas and ticks
 Differences between Habitat and Niche
Basis for Comparison Habitat Niche

i)Meaning: A habitat is an area where a species lives A niche is an ideology of how an organism survives in
and interacts with other species the provided environmental conditions

ii)It includes: Effect of temperature, rainfall and other Flow of energy from one organism to another through
abiotic factors ecosystem

iii)Nature: Habitat is a physical place Niche is an activity performed by living organisms

iv)Specificity: Habitat is not species specific Niche is species specific