Brief Explanation About The Term ‘’Habitat’’

An organism's home is known as its habitat. A habitat is where an organism establishes its base of operations. All of the environmental requirements are met in a habitat for an organism to live. That refers to everything an animal need in order to locate and collect food, choose a spouse, and procreate effectively.

 

A suitable habitat for a plant must have the ideal ratio of light, air, water, and soil. For instance, the prickly pear cactus thrives in arid regions like the Sonoran Desert in northwest Mexico because it is suited to sandy soil, dry weather, and strong sunshine. It wouldn't survive in damp, chilly places with a lot of cloudy (shady) weather, like Oregon or Washington in the United States.

 

A habitat's primary elements are a place to live, access to food and water, and space. When a habitat contains the proper ratio of each of these, it is considered to have an appropriate layout. A habitat may sometimes satisfy some but not all of the requirements of a suitable arrangement.

 

For instance, a puma's environment may have the ideal quantity of food (deer, porcupine, rabbits, and rodents), water (a lake, river, or spring), and cover (trees or dens on the forest floor). But if there isn't enough room for this enormous predator to create its own area, the puma habitat isn't set up properly. When people begin to construct houses and businesses, an animal may lose this aspect of its habitat—space—and be forced into a place that is insufficient for its survival.

 

The quantity of room required for an organism to survive varies greatly across species. For instance, a colony of common carpenter ants only requires a few square inches to build tunnels, gather food, and carry out all the other tasks necessary for survival. Cougars, on the other hand, are solitary, territorial creatures who need a lot of space. Cougars may search for prey across an area of 455 square kilometers (175 square miles). The same amount of area that a carpenter ant need is too little for a cougar to live in.

 

Plants also need room. Coast redwood trees, such as those seen in California's Redwood National Park, may grow to be more than 4.5 meters (15 feet) in diameter and 106 meters (350 feet) tall. An enormous tree would not be able to flourish in an ordinary neighborhood park or yard.

 

Space and range are not the same thing, an animal's range is the area of the globe that it calls home. The giraffe, for instance, lives on grassland, yet is found across central, eastern, and southern Africa.

 

A critical element of a habitat's suitability is its food supply. For instance, black bears in Minnesota's northern region mostly consume vegetation like clover, dandelion, and blueberries. In the event of a drought, plants would be hard to find. The habitat would still include a lot of room (a vast forest), places to hide (cave floors, forest floor), access to water (streams and lakes), and some food, but not enough to consume. The arrangement would no longer be appropriate.

 

An overabundance of food may potentially ruin an ecosystem. A tiny aquatic creature called algae uses the process of photosynthesis to create its own sustenance. Algal growth is facilitated by nutrients like phosphorus. Algae "blooms," or reproduces swiftly, when the phosphorus level in a freshwater ecosystem rises suddenly. Algae also has a rapid demise, and the rotting algae causes an algal bloom. The water may become green, red, or brown due to the algal bloom. Algal blooms have the ability to remove oxygen from the water, which makes it impossible for fish and plants to survive. The food chain in the ecosystem may be destroyed by too many nutrients for algae.

 

Water is necessary for all living things. Every habitat needs a water source of some kind. While some species need a lot of water, some just require very little. Dromedary camels, for instance, are renowned for their capacity to transport people and things over vast distances without requiring much water. One-humped dromedary camels can travel 161 kilometers (100 miles) without stopping for water. Dromedary camels are well-suited to northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where there is enough water despite the hot, dry environment.

 

On the other hand, cattails are a kind of plant that thrives in swamps and other damp environments. These tall, prickly plants thrive in dense colonies right in the muck at the sides of lakes, stream banks, and even backyard ponds. Water is necessary for the proper layout of a cattail ecosystem. Imagine a pond at the base of a cliff that is covered with dirt. There may not be enough water in the pond for the cattails to thrive if enough loose soil dropped into it and filled it up.

 

The shelter of an organism shields it from weather and predators. A place for eating, sleeping, hunting, and raising a family is also provided by a shelter. There are several types of shelter. For many diverse creatures, a single tree may serve as a protected habitat. The underside of a leaf could serve as a caterpillar's refuge. A mushroom fungus may find sanctuary in the cold, moist region close to tree roots. A high perch where a bald eagle can build a nest and keep an eye out for food might serve as shelter.

 

Tropical regions, ranging from southern Mexico to northern South America, are the home of red-eyed tree frogs. They are not in danger of extinction, although their habitat is becoming smaller. The red-eyed tree frog won't have enough room to thrive if its rainforest habitat keeps becoming smaller.