12.1 Habitats: Biotic & Abiotic
Probe and Ponder
In states like Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam, elephants sometimes wander into farms and villages. When their forest food and waterholes dry up — worsened by cutting trees for roads and buildings, and by changing rainfall — they leave the shrinking forest in search of bananas and sugarcane. To protect both elephants and people, ecologists mark wildlife corridors linking forest patches. This one chain of events shows how tightly nature’s parts are connected — which is what this whole chapter is about.
What Is a Habitat? A habitat is simply the place where an organism lives and finds the conditions it needs — food, water, shelter, space. It can be huge (a forest, a pond) or tiny (just the bark of a tree). Different habitats offer different conditions, which is why different plants and animals live in each.
Activity 12.1 — Explore two habitats Visit two nearby habitats (a pond and a forest, say, or a big banyan tree) and list everything you see — both living beings and non-living things. A pond has fish, birds, lotus (living) and water, soil (non-living); a forest has grass, trees, insects and soil, sunlight. Both have a mix of living and non-living parts — but the mix differs.
Biotic and Abiotic Components The two kinds of things in every habitat have names:
- Biotic components — the living parts: plants, animals, microbes.
- Abiotic components — the non-living physical parts: air, water, soil, sunlight, temperature.
Organisms get their biotic needs (like food) and abiotic needs (like oxygen, warmth) from their habitat — a fish takes food from small pond plants and animals, and oxygen from the water.
Sort each item into biotic (living) or abiotic (non-living).
Coexisting in Harmony Many organisms share one habitat but use it differently. In a forest, a snake active at night and a rodent active by day live in the same place but meet different conditions. This sharing of resources in different ways is how living things coexist in harmony.