Habitat

For other uses, see Habitat (disambiguation).
"Breeding ground" redirects here. For the band, see Breeding Ground (band).

This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species.
Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions.[1]
Ibex in an alpine habitat

In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate.[2]

The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and light intensity. Biotic factors include the availability of food and the presence or absence of predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, habitat generalist species are able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species require a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a geographical area, it can be the interior of a stem, a rotten log, a rock or a clump of moss; a parasitic organism has as its habitat the body of its host, part of the host's body (such as the digestive tract), or a single cell within the host's body.[3]

Habitat types are environmental categorizations of different environments based on the characteristics of a given geographical area, particularly vegetation and climate.[2] Thus habitat types do not refer to a single species but to multiple species living in the same area. For example, terrestrial habitat types include forest, steppe, grassland, semi-arid or desert. Fresh-water habitat types include marshes, streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds; marine habitat types include salt marshes, the coast, the intertidal zone, estuaries, reefs, bays, the open sea, the sea bed, deep water and submarine vents.

Habitat types may change over time. Causes of change may include a violent event (such as the eruption of a volcano, an earthquake, a tsunami, a wildfire or a change in oceanic currents); or change may occur more gradually over millennia with alterations in the climate, as ice sheets and glaciers advance and retreat, and as different weather patterns bring changes of precipitation and solar radiation. Other changes come as a direct result of human activities, such as deforestation, the plowing of ancient grasslands, the diversion and damming of rivers, the draining of marshland and the dredging of the seabed. The introduction of alien species can have a devastating effect on native wildlife – through increased predation, through competition for resources or through the introduction of pests and diseases to which the indigenous species have no immunity.

  1. ^ Wohlschlag, Donald E. (1968). "Fishes beneath Antarctic ice" (PDF). Australian Natural History. 16. Australian Museum: 45–48. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2021. Beneath the sea ice and the terminal portions of the Ross Ice Shelf and Koettlitz Glacier tongue is an aquatic habitat that has a nearly uniform freezing temperature of -1.9°C (28.6°F) and a remarkable assemblage of animals.
  2. ^ a b Krausman, Paul R.; Morrison, Michael L. (26 July 2016). "Another plea for standard terminology: Editor's Message". The Journal of Wildlife Management. 80 (7): 1143–1144. doi:10.1002/jwmg.21121.
  3. ^ For example: Swapan Kumar Nath; Revankar, Sanjay G. (2006). Problem-based Microbiology. Problem-based basic science series. Saunders. p. 314. ISBN 9780721606309. Archived from the original on 24 April 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2021. [Measles] virus habitat is humans.