As the term indicates, biotope means place where life develops, because bio means life and topos that is translated as place. In other words, biotopes are places where some form of life develops. In this sense, the idea of biotope is equivalent to the concept of habitat.
The study of biotopes is part of ecology. Ecology is a discipline that is part of biology and focuses on the study of ecosystems, understanding ecosystems as the relationships between living beings and their natural environment. In ecosystems there are two main components: the biocenosis and the biotope. For the first we understand the physical environment and its characteristics (especially the climate, the relief of the terrain or the properties of the soil).
By biocenosis we refer to the set of living beings that are part of an ecosystem. This implies that the concept of biotope refers to a geographical area and that biocenosis refers to living beings that are part of a biotope and the relationships they have with each other.
The link between the biocenosis and the biotope is obvious, as a living organism acquires its resources from the surrounding environment.
The struggle for survival occurs in a particular place, the biotope.
Living things that interact to survive are related in a biotope or habitat. The biotope is the abiotic (lifeless) part of an ecosystem.
The biotope has three dimensions: the environment, the substrate and environmental factors
- The environment is what surrounds organisms and there are three media: terrestrial, aquatic or aerial.
- The substrate is the element on which beings live, for example, a rock, water, the body of other living beings or sand.
- Environmental factors (also called abiotic factors) refer to the physical-chemical characteristics of the environment (atmospheric pressure, degree of humidity, soil salinity, hours of light or temperature).
Environmental factors have the particularity of presenting tolerance limits, that is, margins for each of the environmental conditions (beyond the margins, the life of most species is not possible).
