Environment & Its Components & Their Interaction

By Mr Aritro Mukherjee (Environment Manager)

Environment (Definition)• Environment generally refers to:1. Environment (Biophysical): It includes the Physical and Biological

Factors in the Environment along with their chemical interaction that affects an organism.

2. Environment(Systems) : They include the surroundings of a Physical System that may interact with the System by exchanging Mass, Energy or other Properties.

3. Built In Environment : It includes the constructed surroundings that provide the setting for human activities ranging from the large-scale civic surroundings to the personal places.

Environment(Definition)4. Natural Environment : All living organisms and the non-living things together with their

surroundings constitute the Natural Environment.

5. Social Environment : It includes the culture that an individual lives in and the people and the institutions with whom they interact.

● The Natural Environment encompasses all the living beings and the non-living things occuring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species.

● The concept of the Natural Environment can be distinguished by the following components :(i) Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without

massive human intervention, including all vegetation, micro-organisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries.

(ii) Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism not originating from human activity.

Components of Environment• The biophysical environment is the biotic and abiotic surrounding of an

organism or population, and includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development and evolution. The term environment can refer to different concepts, but is often used as a short form for the biophysical environment. This practice is common, for instance, among governments which entitle agencies dealing with the biophysical environment with denominations such as Environment agency. Whereas the expression "the environment" is often used to refer to the global environment, usually in relation to humanity, the number of biophysical environments is countless, given that it is always possible to consider an additional living organism that has its own environment.

• Constituents The biophysical 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.

Components of Environment• Biotic components are the living things that shape an ecosystem. A biotic factor is

any living component that affects another organism, including animals that consume the organism in question, and the living food that the organism consumes. Each biotic factor needs energy to do work and food for proper growth. Biotic factors include human influence.

• Biotic components are contrasted to abiotic components, which are non-living components of an organism's environment, such as temperature, light, moisture, air currents, etc. Biotic components usually include:

• Producers, i.e. autotrophs: e.g. plants, they convert the energy [from photosynthesis (the transfer of sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into energy), or other sources such as hydrothermal vents] into food.

• Consumers, i.e. heterotrophs: e.g. animals, they depend upon producers (occasionally other consumers) for food.

• Decomposers, i.e. detritivores: e.g. fungi and bacteria, they break down chemicals from producers and consumers (usually dead) into simpler form which can be reused.

Flora(Trees and Plant Vegetation)• Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring

or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animal life is fauna. Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Bacterial organisms, algae, and other organisms are sometimes referred to as flora, so that for example the terms bacterial flora and plant flora are used separately.

• "Flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology.

• Plants are grouped into floras based on region, period, special environment, or climate. Regions can be geographically distinct habitats like mountain vs. flatland. Floras can mean plant life of a historic era as infossil flora. Lastly, floras may be subdivided by special environments:

• Agricultural and Horticultural flora (garden flora). The plants that are deliberately grown by humans.

• Weed flora. Traditionally this classification was applied to plants regarded as undesirable, and studied in efforts to control or eradicate them. Today the designation is less often used as a classification of plant life, since it includes three different types of plants: weedy species, invasive species (that may or may not be weedy), and native and introduced non-weedy species that are agriculturally undesirable. Many native plants previously considered weeds have been shown to be beneficial or even necessary to various ecosystems.

Pictures of Flora(Trees & Plants in a Natural Ecosystem or Environment)

Fauna (Animal Components)• Fauna is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The

corresponding term for plants is flora. Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota.

• Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna".

• Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils.

• "Fauna" comes from the Latin names of Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and panis is the Greek equivalent of fauna. Fauna is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner.

Pictures of Fauna (Animal Components)

Life/Environment Interaction• Life/Environment interaction : All life that has survived must have adapted to conditions of its

environment. Temperature, light, humidity, soil nutrients, etc., all influence any species, within any environment. However life in turn modifies, in various forms, its conditions. Some long term modifications along the history of our planet have been significant, such as the incorporation of Oxygen to the atmosphere. This process consisted in the breakdown of Carbon Di-oxide by Anaerobic Micro-organisms that used the carbon in their metabolism and released the oxygen to the atmosphere. This led to the existence of oxygen-based plant and animal life, the great oxygenation event. Other interactions are more immediate and simple, such as the smoothing effect that forests have on the temperature cycle, compared to neighboring unforested areas.

Flora – Fauna Interaction• Relationships between the flora and fauna Some of the tallest trees and lianas, and the epiphytes they support, bear

flowers and fruits at the top of the rainforest canopy, where the air moves unfettered by vegetation. They are able to depend on the wind for dispersal of pollen from flower to flower, as well as for the spreading of fruits and seeds away from the immediate environment of the parent plant . Ferns, mosses, and other lower plants also exploit the wind to carry their minute spores. However, a great many flowering plants, including many that grow in the nearly windless environment of the understory, depend on animals to perform these functions. They are as dependent on animals for reproductive success as the ani mals are on them for food—one example of the mutual dependence between plants and animals.

Many rainforest trees have sizable seeds from which large seedlings emerge and thrust their way through the thick mat of dead leaves on the dark forest floor. They develop tall stems, using food reserves in the seed without having to rely on sunlight, which is usually too

Food-Chain