Habitat and Factors Affecting the Environment

The limits of tolerance govern the geographic distribution of organisms. A plant or animal species is usually concentrated in areas where the conditions are best for it. Habitats are broadly classified as aquatic or terrestrial. Aquatic habitats may be subdivided into marine or salt water and fresh water. All over the world, marine habitats include shoreline mangrove swamps, intertidal zones, coral reefs, open seas, ocean depths and estuaries.

Some examples of freshwater habitats are lakes, swamps, rivers, ponds, irrigation canals and ditches. In the same way, there are many kinds of terrestrial habitats such as forests, orchards and grasslands. Specifically, we will find thick tropical virgin forests, pine stands, coconut groves, citrus plantations, bamboo thickets, cogon fields on mountain slopes, lowland grasslands and cultivated fields.

In all these habitats of plants and animal, many important physicochemical factors are found. These factors, which interact with living things, may include soil and temperature. One very important environmental factor is the soil. It lies beneath the thin layer of the bedrock on earth. It is formed mostly from weathering rocks and minerals. It may also be from the erosion of running water and wind. In addition, there are other forces of nature that affects it too. Soil may vary in different localities, according to the kind of plant and animal life it supports.

The tilting of the earth’s axis contributes to the unequal distribution of temperature over the earth’s surface. The poles are tilted toward the sun and away from it. That is why there are places which have four seasons namely summer, winter, spring and autumn. When the earth is tilted toward the sun, the days get longer and warmer. Temperature varies from region to region at a given time because the rays of the sun strike the earth at different angles. That is why it is important for some organisms in this world to cope with the changes in temperature in order to survive.