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A biocoenosis (alternatively, biocoenose or biocenose ), termed by Karl Möbius
Karl Möbius

Karl August M?bius was a Germany zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a former director of the Museum f?r Naturkunde in Berlin....
 in 1877, describes all the interacting organism
Organism

In biology, an organism is any life thing . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimulus , reproduction, growth and developmental biology, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole....
s living together in a specific habitat
Habitat (ecology)

A habitat is an ecological or Natural_environment area that is inhabited by a particular animal or plant species. It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population....
 (or biotope
Biotope

Biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of flora and fauna . Biotope is almost synonymous with the term habitat , but while the subject of a habitat is a species or a population, the subject of a biotope is a biocoenosis....
). Biotic community , biological community, and ecological community are more common synonyms of biocenosis, all of which represent the same concepts. Three related descriptors are zoocoenosis for the faunal community, phytocoenosis for the floral community and microbiocoenosis for the microbial community within an ecosystem.






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A biocoenosis (alternatively, biocoenose or biocenose ), termed by Karl Möbius
Karl Möbius

Karl August M?bius was a Germany zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a former director of the Museum f?r Naturkunde in Berlin....
 in 1877, describes all the interacting organism
Organism

In biology, an organism is any life thing . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimulus , reproduction, growth and developmental biology, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole....
s living together in a specific habitat
Habitat (ecology)

A habitat is an ecological or Natural_environment area that is inhabited by a particular animal or plant species. It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population....
 (or biotope
Biotope

Biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of flora and fauna . Biotope is almost synonymous with the term habitat , but while the subject of a habitat is a species or a population, the subject of a biotope is a biocoenosis....
). Biotic community , biological community, and ecological community are more common synonyms of biocenosis, all of which represent the same concepts. Three related descriptors are zoocoenosis for the faunal community, phytocoenosis for the floral community and microbiocoenosis for the microbial community within an ecosystem. The extent or geographical area of a biocenose is limited only by the requirement of a more or less uniform species composition.

An ecosystem
Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical factors of the environment....
, as originally defined by Tansley (1935), is a biotic community (or biocoenosis) along with its physical environment (or biotope
Biotope

Biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of flora and fauna . Biotope is almost synonymous with the term habitat , but while the subject of a habitat is a species or a population, the subject of a biotope is a biocoenosis....
 as defined by many known ecologists).

The importance of the biocoenosis concept in ecology is its emphasis on the interrelationships among species in a geographical area. These interactions are as important as the physical factors to which each species is adapted and responding. In a very real sense, it is the specific biological community or biocoenosis that is adapted to conditions that prevail in a given place.

Biotic communities may be of varying sizes, and larger ones may contain smaller ones. The interactions between species are especially evident in food or feeding relationships. Therefore, a practical method of delineating biotic communities is to map the food network
Food chain

Food chains, also called, food networks and/or trophic social networks, describe the eating relationships between species within an ecosystem....
 to identify which species feed upon which others and then determine the system boundary as the one that can be drawn through the fewest consumption links relative to the number of species within the boundary.

Mapping biotic communities is particularly important when identifying sites in need of environmental protection such as the British Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest or SSSI is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon them, including National Nature Res...
 (SSSIs). The Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
n Department of the Environment and Heritage
Department of the Environment and Heritage (Australia)

The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts , formerly the Department of the Environment and Water Resources , is a department of the Australian Politics of Australia....
 maintains a register of Threatened Species and Threatened Ecological Communities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is an Statute of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and culturally significant places....
 (EPBC Act).

See also

  • Community ecology
    Community ecology

    Community ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology which studies the distribution, abundance, demography, and biological interactions between coexisting populations....
  • Community (ecology)
    Community (ecology)

    In ecology, a community is an assemblage of populations of different species, interacting with one another.The term is used in various ways with slight differences in meaning....


Further reading

  • Kendeigh, S. Charles. 1961. Animal Ecology. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 468 p.
  • Möbius, Karl
    Karl Möbius

    Karl August M?bius was a Germany zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a former director of the Museum f?r Naturkunde in Berlin....
    . 1877. Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft. (tr. The Oyster and Oyster Farming) Berlin. (English translation) U.S. Commission Fish and Fisheries Report, 1880: 683-751.
  • Tansley, A. G. 1935. The use and abuse of vegetational concepts and terms. Ecology, 16(3): 284-307.