Abiotic vs Biotic Factors

Keywords

Abiotic, biotic, factor, ecosystem, plant, symbiosis, disease, competition, predation, organisms, temperature, sunlight, moisture, wind direction, pH level.

Introduction

Within an ecosystem, there are factors that affect how a plant grows. The same as humans, where we have certain things that might help or disadvantage us when we develop from being a child to an adult. The same goes for the maturation process of a plant. So, what does that mean?

Biotic Factors

A biotic factor is where an organism is affected by anything that is living. For example, this could be any of the following:

• Predation
• Competition
• Diseases
• SymbiosisA parasite on another organism.
• Food Sources
• Other living organisms

A plant creates it's own food, so that one, although kind of irrelevant, is still important because a plant needs it's own food to grow. A plant's competition can be something as simple as a small plant under the canopy of large trees trying to find sunlight, so it has to grow taller in order to catch it. Plants suffer from disease much the same as any animal or human, and so that can have a detrimental effect on them.

All of these factors gives a plant the ability to either grow very well, or very little, it all depends on the time frame as to which factor affects the quickest. Predation on a plant for instance, can include an invasive species taking over the area and this can happen very quickly. On the other hand, a disease could take years to affect a plant, or just stunt it's growth.

Interesting fact: the term 'bio' means life, so any factor that is biotic is from another living organism. Abiotic means non-living, so any factor that is abiotic is a non-living effect.

Abiotic Factors

An abiotic factor is non-living change that can affect living organisms. This includes:

• Temperature
• Sunlight exposure
• CO₂Carbon Dioxide concentration
• Moisture levels
• Wind direction
• pH levels in soil

A plant is majorly affected by the majority of these factors. Certainly temperaure and sunlight exposure, as they help with the process of photosynthesis. Plants need to be healthy all the time in order to operate at their optimum levels. With some of these factors not being correct, it will hinder the plant's growth, and possibly kill it, or at least stop it from reproducing.