Habitat

A habitat can be thought of, informally, as an organism's 'address' — the actual physical place where it lives, forages, and carries out its life processes, as distinct from its niche, which is more like its 'occupation'. All the separate habitat patches used by a species together define that species' geographical range. Because organisms sharing a habitat inevitably interact — competing, feeding on each other, or feeding on shared resources — habitats are also the stage on which food chains and food webs are built. Adaptation to habitat can be dramatic: desert-dwelling camels conserve water so effectively that they can withstand dehydration up to a quarter of their body weight, aided by concentrated urine, efficient evaporative cooling through skin and respiratory passages, and structural features like broad hoofs and a fat-storing hump suited to a dry, sandy habitat. Aquatic habitats pose the opposite challenge — maintaining osmotic balance against surrounding water — so marine animals guard against cell shrinkage while freshwater organisms guard against their cells bursting, and fish as a group show a whole suite of habitat-linked adaptations: fins for locomotion, a …