Biotic

The biotic components of a grassland ecosystem are the living organisms that exist in the system. These organisms can be classified as producers, consumers ordecomposers. Producers are able to capture the suns energy through photosynthesis and absorb nutrients from the soil, storing them for future use by themselves and by other organisms. Grasses, shrubs, trees, mosses, lichens, and cyanobacteria are some of the many producers found in a grassland ecosystem. When these plants die they provide energy for a host of insects, fungi and bacteria that live in and on the soil and feed on plant debris. Grasses are an important source of food for large grazing animals such as marmots, Pocket Gophers and mice. Consumers are organisms that do not have the ability to capture the energy produced by the sun, but consume plant and/or animal material to gain their energy for growth and activity. Consumers are further divided into three types based on their ability to digest plant and animal material:

Herbivores eat only plants, such as the elk that graze the grasslands of the Columbia valley, or an insect nibbling on the leaf of a sticky geranium. Omnivores eat both plants and animals, such as the black bear. Carnivores eat only animals, such as the red-tailed hawk or western rattlesnake.

Decomposers include the insects, fungi, algae and bacteria both on the ground and in the soil that help to break down the organic layer to provide nutrients for growing plants. There are many millions of these organisms in each square metre of grassland. Soil has many biotic functions in a grasslands ecosystem. It provides the material in which plants grow, holds moisture for plants to absorb, is the "recycling bin" for plant and animal matter, and provides an important habitat for soil organisms. Soil is a vital link between the biotic and abiotic parts of a grassland ecosystem.

Want to know more about producers, consumers, soils and decomposers? Go to Ecosystem Processes

Abiotic echosystem
In ecology and biology, abiotic components are non-living chemical and physical factors in the environment which affect ecosystems. Abiotic phenomena underlie all of biology. Abiotic factors, while generally downplayed, can have enormous impact on evolution. Abiotic components are aspects of geodiversity. They can also be recognised as "abiotic pathogens". From the viewpoint of biology, abiotic influences may be classified as light or more generally radiation, temperature, water, the chemical surrounding composed of the terrestrial atmospheric gases, as well as soil. The macroscopic climate often influences each of the above. Not to mention pressure and even sound waves if working with marine, or deep underground, biome. Those underlying factors affect different plants, animals and fungi to different extents. Some plants are mostly water starved, so humidity plays a larger role in their biology. If there is little or no sunlight then plants may wither and die from not being able to get enough sunlight to do photosynthesis. Many archaebacteria require very high temperatures, or pressures, or unusual concentrations of chemical substances such as sulfur, because of their specialization into extreme conditions. Certain fungi have evolved to survive mostly at the temperature, the humidity, and stability of their environment. For example, there is a significant difference in access to water as well as humidity between temperate rainforests and deserts. This difference in water access causes a diversity in the types of plants and animals that grow in these areas.