4 Biodiversity and natural resources

■ A* Extension 4.5: Understanding ‘abiotic’ and

‘biotic’ factors
An ecosystem is the name we give to a stable unit of nature. It consists of a community of organisms
interacting with each other and with their physical and chemical environment. The living things
present are known as the biota, and their physical environment as the abiotic environment.
These two aspects of ecosystems are so closely related as to be almost inseparable. To learn
about the working of the ecosystem, however, we need to look at both aspects in more detail.

Introducing the abiotic factors

The abiotic factors, the physical and chemical components of an ecosystem, more or less decide
the physical conditions in which populations live. The abiotic factors of a terrestrial habitat are
of three types, relating to:
■ climate – factors such as solar radiation, temperature, rainfall and wind
■ soil – factors such as the parent rock, soil water and soil chemistry, and the mineral nutrients
available
■ topography – factors such as slope and aspect of the land, and altitude.

Introducing the biotic factors

The organisms of an ecosystem are the biota. In most ecosystems the biota consists of many
different populations of organisms. Together, these populations form a community of living
things. Very rarely do individuals or populations live in isolation. Instead, living things interact
within their community. For example, all are in competition for resources, including space.
Interactions between organisms can be seen as being of two types. There are interactions
between members of the same species (known as intraspecific competition) and between
members of different species (interspecific competition).

Interactions of abiotic factors

The interactions of abiotic factors and biotic factors of ecosystems are numerous and complex.
However, we can summarise them by pointing out that the abiotic environment influences what
survives and grows, and the biota then influence the abiotic conditions by their presence and
activities.
Can you think of ways in which the biota influence the abiotic environment in a habitat in your area?

■ A* Extension 4.6: ‘Niche’ and the competitive

exclusion principle
The competitive exclusion principle states that, if two species attempt to share the same
resource in the same place and at the same time, then one species will dominate, and out-
compete the other. The latter species may either die out or move away to avoid the competition.
This principle was first suggested by a Russian biologist G. F. Gause in 1934, based on his
experiments culturing different species of Paramecium in the laboratory (see illustration on the
next page).

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2 BIODIVERSITY AND NATURAL RESOURCES – A* EXTENSIONS

An experiment carried out by G. C. Gause in 1934 using species of Paramecium, a large protozoan
common in fresh water. It feeds on plankton, the food source used in these experiments.

food vacuoles of
waste disposed of bacteria formed here

gullet (’cytopharynx’)

a feeding current is generated

by cilia in the oral groove

products of digestion
absorbed into cytoplasm

food vacuoles have

digestive enzymes direction of movement
added, first in an acid
phase, then in an
alkaline phase

P. aurelia
a smaller,
species cultured separately fast-growing species

200
numbers of Paramecium per
0.5 cm3 of culture solution

150

100
P. caudatum
50 a relatively large,
slow-growing species
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
time in days

species cultured together

200
numbers of Paramecium per
0.5 cm3 of culture solution

150

100 P. caudatum was

competitively excluded
50

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
time in days

We can see from the graphs that ‘competitive exclusion’ may be the pressure that causes related
species living in close proximity to evolve separate niches. In this way, competition between
them is at an end. Of course, this would only occur over an extended period of time. So, the
competitive exclusion principle would, in the long term, account for the difference in niches
between the two species of paramecium, for example.
Since it was first proposed, the competitive exclusion principle has been demonstrated
convincingly in laboratory studies, but the demonstration of its operation in the environment is
more difficult.

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3 BIODIVERSITY AND NATURAL RESOURCES – A* EXTENSIONS

However, the behaviour of two species of barnacle that live on the seashore appears to be a
case in point. Barnacles are sedentary crustaceans colonising any surface in the inter-tidal zone
on which they happen to settle. But before that occurs, barnacles are dispersed to fresh habitats
by their free-swimming larval stage, which eventually settles on some rocky surface it encounters.
Now one of these two species of barnacle, Chthamelus, is able to withstand prolonged exposure
when the tides recede, but these same conditions kill off the other species, Semibalanus. The
result is a characteristic distribution pattern of barnacle populations; Chthamelus barnacles are
found in the upper inter-tidal zones, but are crowded out from lower zones, and for Semibalanus
barnacles, the reverse is the case. We see here that it is a difference in resistance to periodic
desiccation that has determined where each species will survive best. The two species are
adapted to different environmental conditions.

The degree of exposure determines the distinctive distribution pattern of these two species of barnacle:

Chthamalus Semibalanus

6 plates

Interpretations of
Distribution Tide levels
observations and experiments
adults larvae
C mean high
B spring tide
Chthamalus survives
Semibalanus dies through desiccation mean high
neap tide

Semibalanus outcompetes
Chthamalus for space
mean tide

rock Semibalanus grows

vigorously mean low
neap tide

Semibalanus subjected to increased predation mean low

(e.g. from whelks) and competition (e.g. from algae) spring tide

Key: Chthamalus zone Semibalanus zone

■ A* Extension 4.7: The development of the

ideas of evolution
The idea of biological evolution is closely linked to the name of Charles Darwin, but in fact
evolution was discussed by Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), Charles’s grandfather, and by other
biologists and geologists long before the publication of Charles’s controversial theory shocked
Victorian Britain.

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4 BIODIVERSITY AND NATURAL RESOURCES – A* EXTENSIONS

The earliest, significant contribution to acceptance of the ideas of organic evolution was a
geological discovery. It was the realisation that the Earth is extremely old. In Western culture,
the biblical account of creation was generally accepted as authoritative until the eighteenth
century, at least. Furthermore, the chronology detailed in the Bible suggested that life had
appeared on Earth a mere few thousand years ago. This timescale, that the Earth was only
5000–6000 years old, was widely accepted in Europe until well into the nineteenth century.
James Hutton (1726–97), a doctor, farmer and experimental scientist, realised that the
sedimentary rocks of many existing mountain ranges had once been the beds of lakes and seas
and, before that, had been the rocks of even older mountains. He made no estimate of the age of
the Earth, but he realised that, in contrast to biblical estimates, the Earth’s timescale virtually
has ‘no beginning and no end’.
Now, geologists estimate the age of the Earth as being 4500 million years old, and life as
having originated 3500 million years ago. On these timescales, it becomes possible to imagine
organic evolution by gradual changes.

■ A* Extension 4.8: Introducing the biomes of

the world
When our planet is examined by satellite photography from space, we see that large, stable vegetation
zones occur over most of the Earth’s land surface. Biologists call these zones biomes. Examples of
biomes are the tropical rain forest, temperate grasslands and deciduous and coniferous forests.
In a biome it is the dominant plants that set the way of life of other living things. These
plants provide the principal source of nutrients and many different habitats. The dominant
plants influence the physical and chemical conditions too, playing a key part in setting the
environmental conditions of all the other organisms of the biome.
Figure E4.6 is a world map showing the biomes. A point to notice is that ‘forests’ are a major
climax community in many terrestrial ecosystems, more or less everywhere except where the
climate is too dry or too cold. Trees of some sort cover about one third of the land’s surface, or at
least they did before the intervention of humans.

Arctic Circle

60°

40°
Tropic
of
Cancer

20°

100° 80° 40° 20° 0° 60° 80° 140° Equator

0°

20° Tropic
of
Capricorn
Key
40° tropical rainforest Mediterranean scrub forest
temperate rainforest grassland and savannah
temperate deciduous desert
forest
ice and tundra (treeless
60°
boreal coniferous forest plains of marsh and stones)
(taiga) Antarctic Circle

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