Habitat From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses of "Habitat", see Habitat (disambiguation). Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat. A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particul ar species of animal, plant, or other type of organism.[1][2] It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surroun ds a species population.[3] A habitat is made up of physical factors such as soil, moisture, range of temper ature, and availability of light as well as biotic factors such as the availabil ity of food and the presence of predators. A habitat is not necessarily a geogra phic area for a parasitic organism it is the body of its host or even a cell withi n the host's body.[citation needed] Contents 1 2 3 4 5 Microhabitat Monotypic habitat See also Notes and references External links

Microhabitat A microhabitat is the small-scale physical requirements of a particular organism or population.[citation needed] Monotypic habitat The monotypic habitat occurs in botanical and zoological contexts, and is a comp onent of conservation biology. In restoration ecology of native plant communitie s or habitats, some invasive species create monotypic stands that replace and/or prevent other species, especially indigenous ones, from growing there. A domina nt colonization can occur from retardant chemicals exuded, nutrient monopolizati on, or from lack of natural controls such as herbivores or climate, that keep th em in balance with their native habitats. The yellow starthistle, Centaurea sols titialis, is a botanical monotypic-habitat example of this, currently dominating over 15,000,000 acres (61,000 km2) in California alone.[4][5] The non-native fr eshwater zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha, that colonizes areas of the Great L akes and the Mississippi River watershed, without its home-range predator contro l, is a zoological monotypic-habitat example. Even though its name may seem to i mply simplicity as compared with polytypic habitats, the monotypic habitat can b e complex.[6] See also Biotope Habitat conservation Habitat corridor Habitat fragmentation Marine habitats Habitat destruction: the loss of habitat