The Organism and its Environment

Abstract

The very word ‘environment’ conjures up an impression of a structural, physical ‘stage-set’ upon which background biological processes are acted out. In practice, of course, any organism’s environment includes other organisms, as well as this physical ‘set’; living organisms of its own or different species are as much a part of any creature’s environment as are more structural abiotic components as we shall later consider. However, the physicochemical, abiotic, background is perhaps the most obvious, and fundamental facet of the environment. Abiotic relationships are the primary factors determining whether or not any organism can exist in a certain environment, and, while bio tic interactions may later modify how an organism lives within that structural environment, may alter the fine detail of its ecology, if the organism is not initially adapted to its physico-chemical environment, it cannot exist there in the first place.