The area where an organism lives

The thin layer of the Earth's surface where living things are able to survive is called the biosphere. It is about 20km thick, from the bottom of the oceans high up into the atmosphere. Physical conditions outside the biosphere are too extreme to support life. Ecosystems are discrete, recognisable, self-sustaining units within the biosphere, such as woodlands, ponds, salt marshes and rocky shores. Every ecosystem has a living (biotic) component, i.e. the organisms that live there, and a non-living (abiotic) component, i.e. the physical conditions in which an organisms live, such as landscape, climate and type of soil. Specific and readily quantifiable abiotic factors might include temperature, pH, humidity, wind direction, water current, light quality, nutrients, pollutants, salinity, slope, aspect and altitude. An organisms environment refers to the complete range of conditions in the ecosystem which affect its way of life, not only abiotic factors but biological factors such as competition for food, space and shelter. The study of how living organisms interact with each other and with their environment is called ecology.

Although ecosystems are relatively self-contained and perpetuate themselves by the cycling of minerals, they are not completely closed as if surrounded by an invisible box. There is some movement of energy and materials between them. All the energy entering an ecosystem ultimately comes from the sun; sediment is eroded from hills, transported by streams and deposited in ponds; animals may enter and leave, perhaps on a large scale (e.g. migratory birds, butterflies and fish) or on a smaller scale (e.g. a woodpigeon flying from a wood to feed in a meadow). However, this two-way traffic between ecosystems is limited because animals are usually adapted to the particular conditions of only one ecosystem. Sometimes the natural boundaries between ecosystems overlap or are hard to define, such as those between rivers, estuaries and the sea.

The specific place where an organism lives is called its habitat. Habitats may exist on a range of scales: woodland is a habitat for spotted woodpeckers; an individual tree may provide the habitat for certain mosses, bark beetles; individual leaves provide a habitat for leaf miners, although at this small scale we might call it a microhabitat. The body of a host animal or plant provides a habitat for an internal parasite.

Contents

Answer

Verified

Hint: Every organism present on the earth needs a place to live and thus, at the place where it lives, it performs a certain function and plays an important role to maintain the equilibrium of the ecosystem.Complete answer:
The place where an organism lives is known as habitat. A habitat is that type of natural environment in which a particular species of an organism lives. Every organism has certain needs for the habitat and each organism has its own conditions in which it will thrive, but some of the organisms are tolerant to wide variations whereas others are very specific and particular in case of their requirements. A habitat need not to be necessarily any geographical area, it can be anything like the interior of a stem, a rock or a clump of moss, and for any parasitic organism it is the body of its host, it lives either inside the body or on the body of the host.
An organism is known to share its habitat with various other biotic and abiotic components. The function or role of the organism being played in its habitat or its profession is called a niche. Organisms on the basis of their habitat and the conditions in which it lives is divided into certain categories like thermophiles - which lives in the habitat conditions of high temperatures, halophilic- they live in the habitat where the salt concentration is very high etc.

Note: Habitat is the basic need of every organism, it defines the territory occupied by an organism, and it determines what type of interaction the organism will have with its surrounding environment.

A place where an organism lives, including the living and nonliving conditions of its surrounding environment, is called a .

No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today!

No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today!

Right on! Give the BNAT exam to get a 100% scholarship for BYJUS courses

Solution

The correct option is C habitat
A place where an organism or a community of organisms live, including the living and nonliving conditions of their surrounding environment, is called a habitat. The habitats of all living organisms make up the Earth's biosphere.