Class 6 - Science - Chapter 9 - The Living Organisms – Characteristics And Habitats

 The Living Organisms – Characteristics And Habitats

Introduction

• Living organisms are creatures present everywhere in this living world.
• Living organisms are present on the mountains, on the desert, in sea, in the openings of volcanoes and even in the cupboards of our house.
• Different living organisms are present in different locations having different surroundings. For example, camels on the desert, crabs on the beach. Also there are some creatures which are present in many locations. For example, ants can be seen on desert, beach, forest etc.

Adaptation of organisms

Adaptation is the property of the organisms by which organisms can live in its surroundings because of the presence of certain features or specific habits. Let us understand adaptation of organisms with example.

Adaptation of Camels –

•  Live in desert.
•  Can live without water for a long time.
• Long legs of camels help them to keep their bodies away from desert.
• Excrete small amount of urine and loselittle water fromtheir body and thus they are adapted to live in desert for many days without water.

Adaptation of fishes-

• Fishes inside water have streamlined shape body and have slippery scales to move inside water and protect themselves.
• Fishes have fins and tails to keep balance in water.
• They also have gills to use oxygen dissolved in water which help them to live inside water for years.

Habitat of organisms

·         Habitat is the surroundings of an organism where they live.

Different kinds of habitat are-

• Terrestrial habitat- The habitat whichincludes land is called terrestrial habitat.Forest, grasslands, deserts, mountain regions are some examples of terrestrial habitat.

• Aquatic habitats- The habitat that includes water is called aquatic habitat. Examples- pond, sea.

Biotic and Abiotic components

• Biotic components are the ones which include all living beings in a habitat where as various non-living things of the habitat constitute abiotic components.

• Examples of Biotic components- plants, microorganisms, animals etc.

• Examples of  Abiotic components- rocks, water bodies, mountains, air etc.

• Abiotic components are important to us as these help us to grow and maintain the life of all living beings.
• For example – plants need water, light, heat for growth.Adaptation of organisms to the abiotic changes of their habitat 
• Plants and animals adapt themselves to exist in very cold as well as hot climate. The abiotic factor of a region changes over thousands of years. The organisms need to adapt themselves to these changes to survive; the organisms which cannot adapt die out. 
• Different kinds of organisms are present in different habitats as they adapt to different abiotic changes in different ways.

Let us study about adaptation of different organism’s to the abiotic factors of different habitats:-

Terrestrial habitats

Deserts-

• Varieties of animals are found in desert along with camels.
• We know about the adaptation of camels but rats, snakes found in desert do not have long legs to keep their body away from sand so they stay in burrows deep in the sand and they come out only during night.
• Plants present in desert lose very little water through transpiration. They are adapted to this by having small leaves or spine shaped leaves and sometimes even the leaves are absent.
• They also have thick wax coated stem, and roots are long to go very deep in to the soil.

Mountain regions-

• Different plants and animals found in mountains are adapted to the cold and windy climate and even from snowfall in different ways.
• Trees have cone shaped sloping branches with needle like leaves so that rainwater and snow can slide off easily.
• Animals have thick skin or fur or hair to protect themselves from cold.For example yak, snow leopard.
• The mountain goat is an animal has strong hooves for running up the rocky slopes of the mountains.

Grasslands-

• Prey and predators found in grasslands adapt several features to survive. For example, i) a lion and ii) a deer.
• A lion is a prey wants to eat animals have long claws in the front legs , light brown color, eyes in front of the face which allows it to hunt animals and kill its prey.

•  A deer in order to run away from its predator has long ears to hear movement, eyes to look in all directions and speed of running to run away from its prey.

 Aquatic habitats

Oceans-

• Fishes have streamlined bodies to move easily inside water.
• Other sea animals which do not have streamlined body stay very deep inside the ocean and when they move in water they make their body streamlined.
• Some animals have gills to use dissolved oxygen.
• Some animals like dolphin breathe air through blowholes located on the upper parts of their head. Dolphins can stay inside water without breathing for a long time and when needed come out to the surface to breathe in air.

Ponds and lakes

• The aquatic plants have roots fixed in the soil and only hold plants in place.
• Stems are long, hollow, light and grow above the surface of water and leaves, flowers, float on the surface of water.
• Some aquatic plants are found to be totally submerged in water and these have highly divided leaves for the flow of water without damaging them.
• Frogs are found both in water and land. Their strong back legs help them in catching prey and webbed feet to swim in water.

How are living beings different from non-living things?

Certain criteria’s can differentiate living beings from non living things-

1. Need of food

• Like all animals; plants also need food for growth and development which they prepare by photosynthesis.
• But non-living things do not grow and thus do not need food.

2. Growth-

• All livings beings grow and showdifferent stages of growth.
• Young ones of animals grow into adults. For example- Pups of a dog grow into adults,chicken from a hatched egg grows into a hen or a cock.

3. Respiration –

• The process of breathe in oxygen and using by the body to obtain energy and releasing carbon di oxide produced in this process is called respiration.
• Breathing is a part of respiration.
• Different organisms use different ways to exchange gases. For example- earthworms breathe through air, fishes through gills , plants by the tiny pores present in the leaves.
• In sunlight, plants take carbon di oxide to produce food and release oxygen. This process is called photosynthesis.
• Photosynthesis in plants take place only during day time but respiration takes place day and night.
• Non living things do not breathe and hence do not respire.

4. Response to stimulus-

• Any change in the external environment is called stimuli andreaction of organisms against the stimulus is called response. 
• Examples- Shut down of eyes in bright light, Running away of wild animals in response to bright light, Blooming of plants only after sunset, Folding of touch me not plants when touched
• But non-living things do not show any response against stimulus.

5. All living organisms excrete-

• Digestion of food takes place inside the body and used by the cells but  undigested food remains as waste.
• The process of  removal of waste from the body is called excretion.
• Excretion is shown by all plants and animals, some  plants  can store the waste as harmless products and some plants use the method of secretion to excrete the waste.

6. Reproduction-

•  The process of giving rise to the young ones is called reproduction.
•  Some animals produce young ones through eggs and some give birth.
• Some plants reproduce from seed which germinates and grow into a new plant.
•  Some plants reproduce through other parts of the plant body. For example, a part of a potato with bud can give rise to a new plant.
• Some plants reproduce through cuttings in the plant body.
•  All non-living things are manmade and thus cannot give rise to the new one.

7. Movement-

• All living beings can move from one place to another except plants.
• Plants cannot move from one place to another because these are anchored in soil by roots, but minerals, water and foods present in the    plant move from one part to other parts of the plant.
• Closing and opening of flowers of a plant is another phenomenon which shows that plants can move.
• Non-living things are constant in their places where they are kept and hence cannot move.

• Bus, clocks, clouds can also move but these do not show other characteristics of living beings so these are non living.

• A moong seed can stay in a shop for months but do not show characteristics of life. After planting and watering it turns into a whole plant. This shows that in some cases a thing has all characteristics of living being but we cannot easily say it living.

• Deeping hand inside a sack of wheat gives a feeling of heat production which is due to respiration but other criteria’s to become a living being are not found.
• Cloud shows movement and also grows in size but other features to become a living being are absent.

Deciding living or non living is really difficult but seeing at the diversities of life it can be concluded that life is beautiful.