Let's take a virtual journey through our diverse living planet Earth, inhabited by many different creatures, of which there are more than two million species. And how many have not yet been discovered by science? Today we will talk with you about where living organisms live on our planet, what is the name of space and the conditions where they can exist. But first, let's say a few words about the terms we use.
Habitat of living organisms
What is meant by habitat? This is the space in which, in fact, the life of organisms flows. And if its origin is not connected with the vital activity of creatures, then it means that we are dealing with an inanimate environment (abiotic).
Media types
In science, four types of environments suitable for life are distinguished: soil, water, ground-air. Scientists recognize the fourth environment as living organisms themselves, which provide shelter for parasitic creatures that use the bodies of other animals or plants for their life.
Habitat role
- Organisms get food from the environment. And a certain environment, in turn, can limit the resettlement of individual creatures throughout the space where living organisms live on our planet. For example, due to severe frosts, only some animal species can inhabit the Arctic Circle. In the Sahara desert, where the temperatures are as high as possible, others survive, and for many, this living environment of living organisms is a kind of barrier, an obstacle that cannot be overcome.
- The environment where living organisms live on our planet provides not only existence and adaptation. It affects these organisms, forcing them to evolve, changes them. And as a result, the strongest and most stable species survives.
- The life and activity of creatures, in turn, also have a rather strong influence on a certain environment, sometimes even performs environment-forming functions. So, for example, plants tend to release oxygen into the atmosphere, which maintains its desired balance. And many plants, by the waste of their activity, create a soil structure, a special microclimate appears that contributes to the development of other organisms, such as fungi or bacteria. So the environment where living organisms live on the planet, in fact, is largely formed by these organisms themselves.
Water
This is the oldest known medium. According to scientific data, life on Earth originated in the waters of the oceans, which in those ancient times covered the entire planet. And only then it spread to soil structures. But not all water spaces are suitable for existence. So, for example, at great depths of the Black Sea (below 200 meters) there is a high content of hydrogen sulfide, so life is almost impossible there. And in many coastal waters of the seas and oceans, on the contrary, its diversity is amazing. Water, where living organisms live on our planet, is a very favorable environment. Many fish, shellfish, seaweeds prefer to live there. Among the inhabitants of the aquatic environment there are those who, in order to breathe air, have to periodically emerge from the deeps of the sea: whales and dolphins, for example.
Ground air
Most mammals (including humans), birds, and higher plants live here. And for many insects, a combination of environments is characteristic: nucleation in the soil and continued existence in the ground-air. Amphibians do the same, in the very name of which this combination is visible.
The soil
There is moisture and nutrients in the soil. Therefore, many organisms prefer it as a favorable habitat. These include many types of bacteria and fungi, insects (the life cycle of which also begins in the soil environment), some mammals, arachnids, and worms. So, in one square centimeter of chernozem there can simultaneously be millions of living creatures - bacteria, invisible to the naked eye.
