Abiotic is the medium that does not allow to receive any living being. The abiotic term is composed of the vowel “a” which means “negation” and “biotic” that expresses “life”, therefore the abiotic word indicates “lifeless”.
The abiotic term is the antonym of biotic, which is the environment where life exists and, its factors are the living beings of an ecosystem such as: flora, fauna, among others.
The term abiotic is related to the “theory of abiogenesis“, developed in 1870, by Thomas Huxley. The aforementioned theory postulates the origin of life through inorganic matter. In reference to this there are various criticisms against this theory, such as, for example, creationists who believe that life on earth was created by God and scientists who support the “biogenesis theory”, that is, that life arises from living matter.
Currently, the only theory that has credibility is the “biogenesis theory” and the “abiogenesis theory” should continue with the investigations so it is expected its total verification or the replacement of it with a better theory.
Abiotic factors
Abiotic factors are essential in ecosystems and influence living beings such as, for example, water, soil, climate, temperature, among others, because the animal needs water and optimal climatic conditions to survive.
In reference to the above, the abiotic components develop the biotope, which is a geographical space where there are environmental conditions that allow the coexistence of a set of organisms of all species that is known as biocenosis, in reference to this point, the experts divide it into: hydrotope that are hydrographic resources, climatope is characterized by climatic conditions, edafotopo refers to the earth, among others.
There are organisms that support for a long period the absence of any abiotic factor and, are known as: eurioic organisms, on the contrary, stenoic organisms are beings that resist for a narrow period the disappearance of an abiotic factor. Due to the above, organisms change their physiological and morphological characteristics in order to adapt and survive a certain environment.
