Please explain briefly about the difference between the words 'community' and 'habitat'.
The textbook said "The place where an organism occurs is called its habitat" and "All the populatons of plants and animals in the same habitat make up the community" But I just don't get it.
Think about your community and habitat.
Your community is made up of the people, plants, and perhaps animals. Your habitat may be a city, farmland, desert, forest, suburbia, etc. Your habitat also includes average temperatures, rainfall, etc.
In other words a community is made up of living organisms that interact with each other.
A habitat is the place where the community exists.
Sure! Let's break it down:
1. Habitat: A habitat refers to the physical environment in which an organism lives. It includes various biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors such as temperature, humidity, soil type, and availability of food and water. Essentially, it is the specific place or "home" where an organism can find everything it needs to survive and reproduce.
To understand the concept of a habitat better, you can think about it in terms of a human example. For instance, a fish's habitat may be the ocean, a bird's habitat may be trees, and a polar bear's habitat may be the Arctic tundra.
2. Community: A community, on the other hand, refers to the entire population of different species (plants, animals, fungi, microorganisms) that live and interact within a given habitat. In simpler terms, a community represents all the living organisms that coexist and share the same space and resources within a specific habitat.
To better understand this concept, picture a forest ecosystem as an example. In a forest habitat, you may find various communities such as trees, shrubs, flowers, birds, insects, and mammals. All these different populations of species together make up the community of the forest habitat.
So, in summary, the habitat is the physical environment or home where an organism resides, while the community is the collection of different populations of species that live and interact within that habitat.