Biotic Factors

Biotic factors are the interactions among living organisms — plants with plants, and animals with plants — and they can cause substantial, sometimes decisive, effects on vegetation, whether directly (through feeding, damage or physical contact) or indirectly (by modifying the environment those plants grow in). Plants growing together in a community constantly influence one another, and animals associating with plants affect plant life in a variety of ways. All of these biotic interactions can be sorted into two broad categories based on their net effect on the species involved: positive interactions, where one or both participants benefit and neither is harmed (mutualism and commensalism), and negative interactions, where at least one participant is actively harmed (predation, parasitism, competition and amensalism). A compact way to summarise every type of interaction is by the net effect (benefit, harm, or no effect) each partner experiences — mutualism benefits both partners, commensalism benefits one …