Abstract: Environmental factors of the environment
NON-STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
CAPITAL FINANCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN ACADEMY
Branch in Salekhard
Faculty of Civil Service and Finance
Specialty: State and municipal administration
Subject "Ecology of territories"
" Environmental factors of the environment "
Completed by a 2nd year student
Salekhard, 2011
Introduction
1. Habitat
2. Environmental factors
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The surrounding organic world is an integral part of the environment of every living being. The mutual relations of organisms are the basis for the existence of biocenoses and populations.
The living is inseparable from the environment. Each individual organism, being an independent biological system, is constantly in direct or indirect relationship with various components and phenomena of its environment or, in other words, the habitat that affects the state and properties of organisms.
Environment is one of the basic ecological concepts, which means the whole range of elements and conditions surrounding the organism in that part of the space where the organism lives, all that among which it lives and with which it directly interacts. At the same time, organisms, having adapted to a certain set of specific conditions, gradually change these conditions in the course of their life activity, i.e. environment of its existence.
The purpose of the abstract is to understand the variety of environmental environmental factors, given that each factor is a combination of the corresponding environmental conditions and its resource (reserve in the environment).
1. Habitat
The habitat is that part of nature that surrounds a living organism and with which it directly interacts. The components and properties of the environment are diverse and changeable. Any living being lives in a complex, changing world, constantly adapting to it and regulating its life activity in accordance with its changes.
The habitat of an organism is a set of abiotic and biotic conditions of its life. The properties of the environment are constantly changing, and any creature, in order to survive, adapts to these changes.
The impact of the environment is perceived by organisms through environmental factors called environmental.
2. Environmental factors
Environmental factors are diverse. They may be necessary or, conversely, harmful to living beings, promote or hinder survival and reproduction. Environmental factors have a different nature and specificity of action. Among them are abiotic and biotic, anthropogenic (Fig. 1).
Abiotic factors are the whole set of factors of the inorganic environment that affect the life and distribution of animals and plants. Abiotic factors are temperature, light, radioactive radiation, pressure, air humidity, salt composition of water, wind, currents, terrain - these are all properties of inanimate nature that directly or indirectly affect living organisms. Among them, physical, chemical and edaphic are distinguished.
Fig.1. Environmental factors of the environment
Physical factors are those whose source is a physical state or phenomenon (mechanical, wave, etc.). For example, the temperature, if it is high, will cause a burn, if it is very low, frostbite. Other factors can also affect the effect of temperature: in water - current, on land - wind and humidity, etc.
But there are also physical factors of global impact on organisms, which include the natural geophysical fields of the Earth. It is well known, for example, the ecological impact of the magnetic, electromagnetic, radioactive and other fields of our planet.
Chemical factors are those that come from the chemical composition of the environment. For example, the salinity of the water. If it is high, life in the reservoir may be completely absent (Dead Sea), but at the same time, most marine organisms cannot live in fresh water. The life of animals on land and in water, etc. depends on the sufficiency of the oxygen content.
Edaphic factors, i.e. soil - this is a combination of chemical, physical and mechanical properties of soils and rocks that affect both the organisms living in them, i.e. those for which they are the habitat, and on the root system of plants. The influence of chemical components (biogenic elements), temperature, humidity, soil structure, humus content, etc. is well known. on the growth and development of plants.
Among abiotic factors, climatic (temperature, air humidity, wind, etc.) and hydrographic factors of the aquatic environment (water, current, salinity, etc.) are quite often distinguished.
These are already factors of living nature, or biotic factors.
Biotic factors are forms of influence of living beings on each other. Each organism constantly experiences the direct or indirect influence of other creatures, enters into contact with representatives of its own species and other species - plants, animals, microorganisms, depends on them and itself has an impact on them.
For example, in the forest, under the influence of vegetation cover, a special microclimate or microenvironment is created, where, in comparison with an open habitat, its own temperature and humidity regime is created: in winter it is several degrees warmer, in summer it is cooler and wetter. A special microenvironment also occurs in tree hollows, burrows, caves, etc.
Of particular note are the conditions of the microenvironment under the snow cover, which already has a purely abiotic nature. As a result of the warming effect of snow, which is most effective when its thickness is at least 50-70 cm, at its base, approximately in a 5-cm layer, small rodent animals live in winter, since the temperature conditions are favorable for them here (from 0 to - 2°C). Thanks to the same effect, seedlings of winter cereals - rye, wheat - are preserved under the snow. Large animals - deer, elk, wolves, foxes, hares, etc. - also hide in the snow from severe frosts, lying down in the snow to rest.
Intraspecific interactions between individuals of the same species are made up of group and mass effects and intraspecific competition. Group and mass effects - terms proposed by D.B. Grasse (1944) denote the association of animals of the same species into groups of two or more individuals and the effect caused by overpopulation of the environment. Currently, these effects are most often referred to as demographic factors. They characterize the dynamics of the abundance and density of groups of organisms at the population level, which is based on intraspecific competition, which is fundamentally different from interspecific competition. It manifests itself mainly in the territorial behavior of animals that protect their nesting sites and a known area in the area. So are many birds and fish.
Interspecific relationships are much more diverse (Fig. 1). Two species living side by side may not influence each other at all, they may influence both favorably and unfavorably. Possible types of combinations and reflect different types of relationships:
Neutralism - both types are independent and have no effect on each other;
environmental factor habitat
competition - each of the species has an adverse effect on the other;
Mutualism - species cannot exist without each other;
protocooperation (commonwealth) - both species form a community, but can exist separately, although the community benefits both of them;
commensalism - one species, commensal, benefits from cohabitation, and the other species - the owner does not have any benefit (mutual tolerance);
amensalism - one species inhibits the growth and reproduction of another - amensal;
predation - a predatory species feeds on its prey.
Interspecific relationships underlie the existence of biotic communities (biocenoses).
Anthropogenic factors are forms of activity of human society that lead to a change in nature as a habitat for other species or directly affect their lives. In the course of human history, the development of first hunting, and then agriculture, industry, and transport has greatly changed the nature of our planet. The significance of anthropogenic impacts on the entire living world of the Earth continues to grow rapidly.
Although man influences wildlife through a change in abiotic factors and biotic relationships of species, the activities of people on the planet should be singled out as a special force that does not fit into the framework of this classification. At present, practically the fate of the living cover of the Earth, all kinds of organisms is in the hands of human society, depends on the anthropogenic influence on nature.
Modern environmental problems and the growing interest in ecology are associated with the action of anthropogenic factors.
Most factors change qualitatively and quantitatively over time. For example, climatic - during the day, season, by year (temperature, illumination, etc.).
Changes in environmental factors over time can be:
1) regularly-periodic, changing the strength of the impact in connection with the time of day, or the season of the year, or the rhythm of the tides in the ocean;
2) irregular, without a clear periodicity, for example, changes in weather conditions in different years, catastrophic phenomena - storms, downpours, landslides, etc.;
3) directed over known, sometimes long, periods of time, for example, during a cooling or warming of the climate, overgrowing of water bodies, constant grazing in the same area, etc.
Such a subdivision of factors is very important in studying the adaptability of organisms to living conditions. The lack or excess of environmental factors negatively affects the life of the organism. For each organism, there is a certain range of actions of the environmental factor (Fig. 2). The favorable force of influence is called the zone of optimum of the ecological factor or simply the optimum for organisms of a given species. The stronger the deviations from the optimum, the more pronounced the inhibitory effect of this factor on organisms (pessimum zone). The maximum and minimum tolerated values of the factor are critical points, beyond which existence is no longer possible, death occurs. The limits of endurance between critical points are called the ecological valency of living beings in relation to a specific environmental factor.
Fig.2. Scheme of the action of environmental factors on living organisms.
Representatives of different species differ greatly from each other both in the position of the optimum and in ecological valency.
The ability of an organism to adapt to the action of environmental factors is called adaptation (lat. Adantatuo - adaptation).
The range between the minimum and maximum of the environmental factor determines the amount of endurance - tolerance (lat. Tolerantua - patience) to this factor.
Different organisms are characterized by different levels of tolerance.
Conclusion
The same environmental factor has a different meaning in the life of cohabiting organisms of different species. For example, a strong wind in winter is unfavorable for large, open-dwelling animals, but does not affect smaller ones that take refuge in burrows or under snow. The salt composition of the soil is important for plant nutrition, but is indifferent for most terrestrial animals, etc.
Some properties of the environment remain relatively constant over long periods of time in the evolution of species. Such are the force of gravity, the solar constant, the salt composition of the ocean, and the properties of the atmosphere.
Classifications of environmental factors are diverse due to the exceptional complexity, interconnectedness and interdependence of phenomena in nature. Along with the classification of environmental factors considered in this essay, there are many other (less common) ones that use other distinguishing features. So, there are factors that depend and do not depend on the number and density of organisms. For example, the effect of macroclimatic factors is not affected by the number of animals or plants, while epidemics (mass diseases) caused by pathogenic microorganisms depend on the number in a given territory. There are classifications in which all anthropogenic factors are classified as biological.
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