NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 13- Organisms and Populations

Students studying in CBSE Class 12 can access NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 13- Organisms and Populations here. It is PDF format. You can download the PDF for and learn from the book anytime you want. Students who are studying in Class 12 and candidates who are preparing for competitive exams can download the PDF for NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 13- Organisms and Populations to learn from the reading material.  

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Here, you can learn the NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 13- Organisms and Populations. Moreover, you can get the links for other Chapter 13s to download the links. 

ORGANISMS AND POPULATIONS

Our living world is fascinatingly diverse and amazingly complex. We can try to understand its complexity by investigating processes at various levels of biological organisation–macromolecules, cells, tissues, organs, individual organisms, population, communities, ecosystems and biomes. At any level of biological organisation we can ask two types of questions – for example, when we hear the bulbul singing early morning in the garden, we may ask – ‘How does the bird sing?’ Or, ‘Why does the bird sing ?’ The ‘how-type’ questions seek the mechanism behind the process while the ‘whytype’ questions seek the significance of the process. For the first question in our example, the answer might be in terms of the operation of the voice box and the vibrating bone in the bird, whereas for the second question the answer may lie in the bird’s need to communicate with its mate during breeding season. When you observe nature around you with a scientific frame of mind you will certainly come up with many interesting questions of both types - Why are night-blooming flowers generally white? How does the bee know which flower has nectar? Why does cactus have so many thorns? How does the chick spures recognise her own mother ?, and so on.

You have already learnt in previous classes that Ecology is a subject which studies the interactions among organisms and between the organism and its physical (abiotic) environment.

Ecology is basically concerned with four levels of biological organisation – organisms, populations, communities and biomes. In this chapter we explore ecology at organismic and population levels.

13.1 ORGANISM AND ITS ENVIRONMENT

Ecology at the organismic level is essentially physiological ecology which tries to understand how different organisms are adapted to their environments in terms of not only survival but also reproduction. You may have learnt in earlier classes how the rotation of our planet around the Sun and the tilt of its axis cause annual variations in the intensity and duration of temperature, resulting in distinct seasons. These variations together with annual variation in precipitation (remember precipitation includes both rain and snow) account for the formation of major biomes such as desert, rain forest and tundra (Figure 13.1).

Regional and local variations within each biome lead to the formation of a wide variety of habitats. Major biomes of India are shown in Figure 13.2. On planet Earth, life exists not just in a few favourable habitats but even in extreme and harsh habitats – scorching Rajasthan desert, rain-soaked Meghalaya forests, deep ocean trenches, torrential streams, permafrost (snow laden) polar regions, high mountain tops, thermal springs, and stinking compost pits, to name a few. Even our intestine is a unique habitat for hundreds of species of microbes.

What are the key elements that lead to so much variation in the physical and chemical conditions of different habitats? The most important ones are temperature, water, light and soil. We must remember that the physico-chemical (abiotic) components alone do not characterise the habitat of an organism completely; the habitat includes biotic components also – pathogens, parasites, predators and competitors – of the organism with which they interact constantly. We assume that over a period of time, the organism had through natural selection, evolved adaptations to optimise its survival and reproduction in its habitat. Each organism has an invariably defined range of conditions that it can tolerate, diversity in the resources it utilises and a distinct functional role in the ecological system, all these together comprise its niche.

13.1.1 Major Abiotic Factors

Temperature: Temperature is the most important ecologically relevant environmental factor. You are aware that the average temperature on land varies seasonally, decreases progressively from the equator towards the poles and from plains to the mountain tops. It ranges from subzero levels in polar areas and high altitudes to >500C in tropical deserts in summer. There are, however, unique habitats such as thermal springs and deep-sea hydrothermal vents where average temperatures exceed 1000 C. It is general knowledge that mango trees do not and cannot grow in temperate countries like Canada and Germany, snow leopards are not found in Kerala forests and tuna fish are rarely caught beyond tropical latitudes in the ocean. You can appreciate the significance of temperature to living organisms when you realise that it affects the kinetics of enzymes and through it the metabolic activity and other physiological functions of the organism. A few organisms can tolerate and thrive in a wide range of temperatures (they are called eurythermal), but, a vast majority of them are restricted to a narrow range of temperatures (such organisms are called stenothermal). The levels of thermal tolerance of different species determine to a large extent their geographical distribution. Can you think of a few eurythermal and stenothermal animals and plants?

In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the gradually increasing average global temperatures (Chapter 16). If this trend continues, would you expect the distributional range of some species to be affected?

Water: Water is another the most important factor influencing the life of organisms. In fact, life on earth originated in water and is unsustainable without water. Its availability is so limited in deserts that only special adaptations make it possible for organisms to live there. The productivity and distribution of plants is also heavily dependent on water. You might think that organisms living in oceans, lakes and rivers should not face any water-related problems, but it is not true. For aquatic organisms the quality (chemical composition, pH) of water becomes important. The salt concentration (measured as salinity in parts per thousand), is less than 5 in inland waters, 30-35 in the sea and > 100 in some hypersaline lagoons. Some organisms are tolerant of a wide range of salinities (euryhaline) but others are restricted to a narrow range (stenohaline). Many freshwater animals cannot live for long in sea water and vice versa because of the osmotic problems, they would face.

Light: Since plants produce food through photosynthesis, a process which is only possible when sunlight is available as a source of energy, we can quickly understand the importance of light for living organisms, particularly autotrophs. Many species of small plants (herbs and shrubs) growing in forests are adapted to photosynthesise optimally under very low light conditions because they are constantly overshadowed by tall, canopied trees. Many plants are also dependent on sunlight to meet their photoperiodic requirement for flowering. For many animals too, light is important in that they use the diurnal and seasonal variations in light intensity and duration (photoperiod) as cues for timing their foraging, reproductive and migratory activities. The availability of light on land is closely linked with that of temperature since the sun is the source for both. But, deep (>500m) in the oceans, the environment is dark and its inhabitants are not aware of the existence of a celestial source of energy called Sun. What, then is their source of energy?. The spectral quality of solar radiation is also important for life. The UV component of the spectrum is harmful to many organisms while not all the colour components of the visible spectrum are available for marine plants living at different depths of the ocean. Among the red, green and brown algae that inhabit the sea, which is likely to be found in the deepest waters? Why?

Soil: The nature and properties of soil in different places vary; it is dependent on the climate, the weathering process, whether soil is transported or sedimentary and how soil development occurred. Various characteristics of the soil such as soil composition, grain size and aggregation determine the percolation and water holding capacity of the soils. These characteristics along with parameters such as pH, mineral composition and topography determine to a large extent the vegetation in any area. This in turn dictates the type of animals that can be supported. Similarly, in the aquatic environment, the sediment-characteristics often determine the type of benthic animals that can thrive there.  
NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 13- Organisms and Populations- PDF Download

Chapter 13: Organisms and Populations

अध्याय 13: जीव और समष्टियाँ Safalta provides the latest NCERT course books for all the major subjects of Class 12. A team of proficient teachers drafts these matters in a precise and thorough manner. You can download the PDFs for all the subjects in a Chapter 13-wise format.

These Books are very effective in preparing for annual exams. Here is the PDF for NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 13- Organisms and Populations.