Habitats and Environments is a presentation that discusses key concepts. A habitat is an ecological area inhabited by a particular species that provides food, shelter, protection and space for reproduction. An environment includes both biotic and abiotic factors that influence a species' survival, development and evolution. An ecosystem is a community of living and non-living things linked through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Food chains and webs show how organisms are related through what eats what, with food chains being linear and food webs more complex networks. Herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat animals, and omnivores obtain energy from a variety of sources including plants and animals.

1. Habitats and Environments
A Presentation on Habitats and Environments.

2. What is a Habitat?
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal,
plant, or other type of organism. A place where a living thing lives is its habitat. It is a place where
it can find food, shelter, protection and mates for reproduction. It is the natural environment in
which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population.
A habitat is made up of physical factors such as soil, moisture, range of temperature, and
availability of light as well as bioticfactors such as the availability of food and the presence of
predators. A habitat is not necessarily a geographic area—for a parasitic organism it is the body of
its host, part of the host's body such as the digestive tract, or a cell within the host's body.

3. What is an Environment?
The environment is the biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and
consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development and
evolution. The environment can vary in scale from microscopic to global in extent. It can also be
subdivided according to its attributes. Examples include the marine environment, the atmospheric
environment and the terrestrial environment. The number of environments is countless, given that
each living organism has its own environment.

4. What is an Ecosystem?
An ecosystem is a community of living organisms called producers, consumers, and decomposers.
These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and
energy flows.The relationship between the abiotic components and the biotic components of the
ecosystem is termed 'holocoenosis'. As ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions
among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can be of any size but
usually encompass specific, limited spaces (although some scientists say that the entire planet is
an ecosystem, which is probably true).

5. What are Food Chain and Food Web?
Food Chains
A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web
starting from producer organisms (such as grass or
trees which use radiation from the sun to make their
food) and ending at apex predator species (like grizzly
bears or killer whales), detritivores (like earthworms
or woodlice), or decomposer species (such as fungi or
bacteria). A food chain also shows how the organisms
are related with each other by the food they eat.
Each level of a food chain represents a different
trophic level. A food chain differs from a food web,
because the complex network of different animals'
feeding relations are aggregated and the chain only
follows a direct, linear pathway of one animal at a
time. A common metric used to quantify food web
trophic structure is food chain length. In its simplest
form, the length of a chain is the number of links
between a trophic consumer and the base of the web
and the mean chain length of an entire web is the
arithmetic average of the lengths of all chains in a
food web.
Food Webs
A food web (or food cycle) is the natural
interconnection of food chains and generally a graphical
representation (usually an image) of what-eats-what in an
ecological community. Another name for food web is a
consumer-resource system. Ecologists can broadly lump
all life forms into one of two categories called trophic
levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs. To
maintain their bodies, grow, develop, and to reproduce,
autotrophs produce organic matter from inorganic
substances, including both minerals and gases such as
carbon dioxide. These chemical reactions require energy,
which mainly comes from the sun and largely by
photosynthesis, although a very small amount comes from
hydrothermal vents and hot springs. A gradient exists
between trophic levels running from complete autotrophs
that obtain their sole source of carbon from the
atmosphere, to mixotrophs (such as carnivorous plants)
that are autotrophic organisms that partially obtain
organic matter from sources other than the atmosphere,
and complete heterotrophs that must feed to obtain
organic matter.

6. Carnivores, Herbivores and Omnivores
A carnivore /ˈkɑːrnɪvɔər/ meaning 'meat eater' (Latin, caro meaning 'meat' or 'flesh' and vorare
meaning 'to devour') is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet
consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging.
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for
example foliage, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous
animals typically have mouthparts adapted to rasping or grinding. Horses and other herbivores
have wide flat teeth that are adapted to grinding grass, tree bark, and other tough plant
material.
An omnivore /ˈɒmnivɔər/ is an animal whose species normally derives its energy and nutrients
from a diet consisting of a variety of food sources that may include plants, animals, algae, fungi,
and bacteria. Omnivores are often opportunistic, general feeders that lack carnivore or
herbivore specializations for acquiring or processing food, but which nevertheless consume both
animals and plants

7. Made By: Asad Ali, M.Shahzaib and Fahd Khan.