What term describes the non-living chemical and physical components of an ecosystem that influence living organisms, including sunlight, temperature, soil pH, salinity, and rainfall?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D. Abiotic factors
- Step 1: An ecosystem consists of the dynamic interactions between biological communities and their physical environment.
- Step 2: Abiotic factors encompass all inorganic, physical, and climatic variables (such as solar radiation, ambient temperature range, water availability, wind, and mineral nutrients) that determine which species can survive in a biome.
Answer
Abiotic factors
Why not the others: 'Biotic factors' Biotic factors comprise all living or once-living biological organisms in an ecosystem, including predators, prey, parasites, and competitors; 'Trophic factors' Trophic factors refer specifically to nutritional feeding relationships and energy transfer levels within food chains; 'Edaphic factors only' Edaphic factors refer specifically to soil characteristics (texture, pH, minerals), which form only one subcategory of abiotic factors.
Practise more Biomes and Global Ecosystems.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed General Knowledge mock tests.
More Biomes and Global Ecosystems questions
- Which terrestrial biome represents the largest contiguous forest ecosystem on Earth, circling the subarctic high latitudes of North America…
- What name is given to the permanently frozen subsoil layer found throughout the Arctic tundra that prevents deep plant root penetration and…
- What mutualistic microscopic algae live inside the gastrodermal tissues of reef-building stony corals, providing corals with photosynthetic…
- What specialized aerial root adaptations enable mangrove trees (such as Avicennia) to absorb atmospheric oxygen while growing in waterlogged…
- In an ecological food chain, approximately what percentage of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next higher trophic level…
- What term coined by ecologist Robert Paine describes a species whose presence and ecological role exert an exceptionally large influence on…