Biotic factor, classification of biotic factors

The word "biotic" (from the Greek - biotikos) is translated as life. This is the meaning of the term "biotic factor". In the most general form, this scientific category denotes a set of conditions and parameters of the living environment that directly affect the vital activity of organisms. The well-known Soviet scientist-zoologist VN Beklemishev classified all the biotic factors of the environment into four main groups:

- Topical factors - those that are associated with changes in the environment itself;

- trophic - these are the factors that characterize the nutritional conditions of organisms;

- factory factors, which characterize the industrial ties in which organisms of the same species use organisms of a different kind (or their parts or products of vital activity) as a building material;

- forehead - are associated with the movement of organisms of one species by organisms of another species.

As a rule, the effect of the factors under consideration is manifested in the form of interactions between organisms in a given environment and the influence they exert on each other. An important manifestation of the effect of biotic factors is how all organisms in the aggregate affect the environment. Such influence is more narrowly described by biotic environmental factors.

In all the multitude of interactions between organisms that saturate the environment, relations are formed that are usually divided into direct and indirect. In addition, the intraspecific and interspecific relationships are distinguished. In the first case, interactions and their consequences among representatives of one biological species that are characterized by intraspecific competition and the phenomena of group and mass effects are considered. Interspecific relations, as a rule, are very diverse and reflect an extremely wide range of interactions. These relations, by virtue of their diversity, are classified into such types:

- Neutralism is a type of relationship in which the biotic factor determines completely neutral (not bringing benefits or harm) interactions between organisms;

- Sinoykia is a type of relationship in which a representative of one species uses the organism of another to arrange his home without causing a certain harm. This type is also called lodging or cohabitation;

- Competition is a strictly antagonistic relationship that arises between organisms that are in a certain environment and interact with each other and with this environment. Here there is a direct struggle for "a place under the sun", for food, housing and other resources;

- mutualism - the type of interspecific relations in which the biotic factor determines exclusively "mutually beneficial" coexistence of organisms;

- Protooperatsiya is a type of relationship in which organisms, at least for a while, can do without each other without much damage to their existence;

- with commensalism, the biotic factor provides such interaction between organisms, in which one of them uses the other as a home without causing significant harm. Such an example can be the bacteria, in huge numbers present in the human gastrointestinal tract;

- amensalism - a type of interspecific relationship, characterized by such interaction, in which the harm brought by one organism to another, is indifferent to it;

- a kind of relationship in which organisms that live at the expense of other organisms, are harmful to the latter, are called parasitism;

Predation.

As a rule, all types of antagonistic relations ensure the conservation of species populations and maintenance of their numbers.