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A biotope is an area of uniform environmental (physical) conditions providing habitat(s) for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. Used in this sense, "biotope" is really synonymous with the term "ecosystem". However, some ecologists would limit the term to encompassing only physical environmental factors; essentially meaning: the habitat of a community of organisms. Thus, a species has a certain habitat, but the group of species that share an ecosystem with that species, share a biotope. Just as a habitat is the place where a species is found, so a biotope is the place where a specific biological community is found. The Commission of the European Communities of the European Union has a biotopes project that forms part of the CORINE (CO-oRdinated of INformation on the Environment) experimental work programme that publishes the CORINE Biotope Manual (ISBN 99924-41-57-7) describing and defining hundreds of different biotopes. These are described based on both their physical aspects and the dominant species present.
Biotope aquarium The term "biotope" is also used in the aquarium fish hobby to describe an aquarium setup that tries to simulate the natural habitat of specific fishes. The idea is to replicate conditions such as water temperature, natural plants, water type (fresh, salt, hybrid of the two), lighting, and other native fish that represent a particular real-world biotope. | ||||||||
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