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All organisms living in a
particular ecosystem constitute a
community, while the group of organisms of a single
species in an ecosystem is called
population.
For
example, a pond may contain insects, frogs, fish and plants, together
forming a biotic community, but it is made up of different populations
(e.g. frog population, insect population, fish population, etc).
Communities are often defined by the most abundant or obvious
organisms or dominant species (e.g.
kelp forest community means all the animals and plants that are part of
the kelp forest) or the major physical
characteristics of
the area (e.g. mudflat community).
Structure of
community:
community contains three fundamental groups
producers,
consumers and
decomposers-which are dependent
on each other and maintain a dynamic, stable community in spite of many
deaths and new arrivals. |
