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The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event, but a process of increasing complexity involving the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell ...
Abiotic components include physical conditions and non-living resources that affect living organisms in terms of growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Resources are distinguished as substances or objects in the environment required by one organism and consumed or otherwise made unavailable for use by other organisms.
Biotic factors of the ecosystem are living things; such as plants, animals, and bacteria, while abiotic are non-living components; such as water, soil and atmosphere. Plants allow energy to enter the system through photosynthesis, building up plant tissue.
An ecosystem (also called an environment) is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals, and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical factors of the environment. [34]
Ecosystem diversity addresses the combined characteristics of biotic properties which are living organisms (biodiversity) and abiotic properties such as nonliving things like water or soil (geodiversity). It is a variation in the ecosystems found in a region or the variation in ecosystems over the whole planet.
Ecosystem ecology is the integrated study of living and non-living components of ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framework. This science examines how ecosystems work and relates this to their components such as chemicals , bedrock , soil , plants , and animals .
The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning with a process of biopoiesis (life created naturally from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds) or biogenesis (life created from living matter), at least some 3.5 billion years ago. [3] [4] In a general sense, biospheres are any closed, self-regulating systems containing ...
[5] [6] [7] This is complicated by a lack of knowledge of the characteristics of living entities, if any, that may have developed outside Earth. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Philosophical definitions of life have also been put forward, with similar difficulties on how to distinguish living things from the non-living. [ 10 ]