In biology, abiotic components are non-living chemical and physical factors in the environment. Abiotic phenomena underlie all of biology. Abiotic factors, while generally downplayed, can have enormous impact on evolution.
From the viewpoint of biology, abiotic influences may be classified as light or more generally radiation, temperature, water, the chemical surrounding composed of the terrestrial atmospheric gases, as well as soil. The macroscopic climate often influences each of the above. Not to mention pressure and even sound waves if working with marine, or deep underground, biome.
Those underlying factors affect different plants, animals and fungi to different extents. Some plants are mostly water starved, so humidicity plays a larger role in their biology. Archaebacteria require very high temperatures, or pressures, or unusual concentrations of chemical substances such as sulfur, because of their specialization into extreme conditions. Certain fungi have evolved to survive mostly at the temperature, the humidity, and stability.
Things that were once living but now dead are usually considered biotic components rather than abiotic components (corpses, spilled blood). However, things that come from living things but are not living fit into biotic components or abiotic components depending upon the exact definition being used. Generally, things that were once living are considered part of the biotic component, but body waste such as feces, urine (and of course carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water from respiration) are considered part of the abiotic component since it was never living in that decomposed form.
Biotic means relating to, produced by, or caused by living organisms.
The term biotic may also refer to:
- Life, or ecosystem, the condition of living organisms,
- Biology, the study of life
- Biotic component in ecology,
- Biotic material, which is derived from living organisms,
- Biotic potential, an organism's reproductive capacity, or
- Biotic.ro, a new media agency established in Bucharest, Romania.
- Biotic Baking Brigade, an unofficial group of pie-throwing activists.
- In the world of Mass Effect Biotics are people capable of using their minds to manipulate mass effect fields.
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