Nature, for short, is everything that is normally not made by human. We also like to refer to nature as a geology or wildlife phenomena, where living animals and plants exist and live. It can also refer to weather or climates, which are truly something that out of our controls and intervention.
Talking about nature, it cannot be separated with the term of ecosystem. The ecosystem is a biotic and abiotic component, where the structure is determined by various environmental factors, like soil, atmosphere, solar radiation, water, and of course, living organisms.
Now, let’s correlate them with animals. Is there any relationship between nature and animal? How these two things work together? Let’s dive in into more explanation!
Relationship Between Nature and Animal; Will They Ever be Separated?
One of the important thing that nature gives to the animal is a home, or what we called it: habitat. Habitats give an ideal place from animals to live. The range of the ideal type of environment could be different from each of animals since most of them are only designed to a specific type of habitats and cannot survive in the others. For examples, animals in the extreme cold habitats, like the arctic, cannot survive in the warmer regions and vice verca.
There are so many types of terrestrial habitats. In this article, we will talk about several of them:
1. Tropical rainforest
We usually picture rainforest like the Amazon, which is correct. But do you know that the structure of rainforest can be so much more than trees and rivers? In the rainforest habitats, several layers divided the surface until the canopy of the forest. For examples, the forest floor, which is the bottom of the layers is the habitat for amphibians, insects, reptiles, rhinoceros, gorilla, as well as tapir; the understory layer is for the mammals , birds, and various reptiles like poison frogs the canopy layer one is for arthropods, some species of parrot or toucans, exotic spider monkey, and our friend sloth; and the last is layers which consist of tall trees, emergent layer, as a place for flying fox and crowned eagle.
2. Mountains
Not only has a very cold climate, this habitat is also can be hard to live because of the geography in the surrounding, with a lack of food source. Animal species that have to live in here have to develop and adapted to survive in mountains range. Some of them are mountain goats, antelopes, sheep, bears, mountain lions, and more.
3. Grasslands
The African savanna is one of two kinds of grassland habitats, where lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes, and rhino lives. The other one is called temperate grasslands, which is the habitat of mice, rabbits, gazelles, deer, and snakes.
4. Desert
Desert can be a pretty extreme place to live because it has little rainfall and even little or no vegetation. The type of animals that live in this area has to adapt to the extreme heat and humid weathers, without plenty of water, for examples camels, kangaroo rat, and various type of lizards.
5. Freshwater
The freshwater habitats can be divided into some type of forms, such as lakes or ponds, rivers, streams, and swaps. The forms of lakes and ponds are suitable for a wide range of animals, like salmon, common toad, kingfisher, the graceful flamingo, and our unique friend platypus. Some of them, because of their habitat type, able to turn into evolutionary microcosms! Besides lakes, the rives with streams need more special requirements because the animals in it have to deal with the water flowing continuously in the same direction. You may find some of the animals are otters, rivel turtle, dolphins, crocodile, swans, and many more. Wetlands area, on the other hand, is a waterlogged area, like swaps, fensh, or bogs. Some animals that live and grow in this habitat are various type of reptiles, amphibians, birds, some mammals, and of course, fishes like catfish.
6. Marine
We know that our earth mostly covered by oceans. Moreover, what we know about this habitat is so little. Some even say that we know more about space rather than ocean, which is crazy if you think about that, isn’t it?
What we know for sure about marine or ocean habitats is that, just like rainforest habitats, marine can also be divided into several layers; the open ocean, or ‘marine desert’ where the sun radiates the uppermost layer of ocean, the coral reefs layers, and the deep deep ocean layers.
The open ocean one is also called the desert of marine because of its lack of nutrients for supporting animal life. Only several types of marine animals that can live in this layer, for example, blue whale, albatross, some type of turtle, sharks, flying fish, and manta ray. The coral reefs, on the other hand, has calcium carbonate from the corals in it. You can find sea dragons, starfishes, frogfish, and more exotic marine animals live in it. The layers where there is no sunlight and algae is called the deep ocean, which is the deepest layer. The animals that live in this layer are super unique because they have to adapt several ways due to the abnormal food chain. For examples, angler fish, ray-finned fishes, some that of sharks, and the lobe-finned fishes.
Those type of habitats is only several of them. Nature can be way more complex than that. What we know for sure is that nature has given us a lot. Nature is not only for human, after all. But it is also for other living creatures, including animals. The complexity of nature, somehow, let the animals adapt and survive several ways until they become just like what we see today. Nature is not only a place but it is more than that. Nature and animals cannot be separated. Nature gives a home to the animals to live, something that we, humans, cannot offer.