Major abiotic factors

This article offers an overview of major abiotic factors that influence habitat, including temperature, water, light, and soil.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? Inside a volcano? Underwater? In a cosy house in the city?

Realistically speaking, we take practical considerations into account for making this decision, like the neighborhood, the weather in that region, the availability of nearby shops, and so on.

If we were to zoom out and look at how all organisms (not just humans) choose their habitats, we can broadly classify these influencing factors into living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) components. For example, the survival of a species of fish in the ocean might depend on the type of predators present, the pH of the water, the kind of competition it has for food, and so on.

Together, these factors decide what range of conditions an organism can survive within.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the major physico-chemical, or abiotic, factors that influence habitat.

There is an incredible range of temperatures on our planet, from very hot (around the equator), to very cold (at the poles, high altitudes or deep underwater), and including everything in between. Metabolism is the machinery that keeps organisms alive - and since this machinery is very temperature-sensitive , there is a clear reason for life forms being distributed within their optimum temperature ranges.

That being said, there are always exceptions to the rule. While most living beings can only survive in a narrow range of temperatures (stenothermal organisms), some have wide thermal ranges across which they can function (eurythermal organisms).

You've probably heard about or seen news articles about the hunt for water on other planets. This is because life is tied directly to the presence and quality of water. In arid regions, organisms adapt to survive with limited water resources.

Aquatic organisms obviously need water, but they also need specific types of water. pH and salinity determine the distribution of some organisms. Similar to temperature, organisms can either tolerate very small ranges of salinity (stenohaline), or wide ranges (euryhaline).

As you might have guessed, light is very important for the survival of most plants. Similar to organisms in the desert, plants that receive low illumination learn to photosynthesize optimally in such conditions. In some regions like deep underwater, where all of visible light does not penetrate, marine plants utilize only some wavelengths of light.

But it's not just plants that are affected by the presence or absence of light. Several behaviors of animals including feeding, sleeping, migration, and so on depend on the intensity and duration of light.

Several characteristics of soil influence life, including composition, grain size, nutrient content, pH, mineral composition, and water holding capacity.

Apart from these $4$‍ factors, wind, oxygen levels, currents, and several other properties of the environment also contribute to abiotic compenents of a habitat.