Environmental factors and their classification

Individual properties or environmental elements that affect organisms are called environmental factors. The environmental factors are diverse. They may be necessary or, on the contrary, harmful to living organisms, contribute to or hinder survival and reproduction.

Environmental factors can be combined according to the nature of their origin or according to their dynamics and effects on the body.

The factors of the nature origin are:

> Abiotic factors, due to the action of inanimate nature and are subdivided into the climatic (temperature, light, solar radiation, water, wind, acidity, salinity, fire, precipitation, and the like), orographic (elevation, slope, aspect), and geologic.

> Biotic factors - effect of some other organisms, including all the relationships between them. Each organism constantly experiences the direct or indirect influence of other creatures, comes into contact with representatives of its species and other species - plants, animals, microorganisms, depends on them and itself has an effect on them.

> Anthropogenic factors impact on wildlife of human activity. The activities of human society lead to some changes in nature as the habitat of other species or directly affects their lives. During the history of mankind the development of hunting first, and then of agriculture, industry, transport greatly changed the nature of our planet. The importance of anthropogenic impacts on the entire living world of the Earth continues to grow rapidly.