ABSTRACT
All the organisms living in a particular area can be described collectively as the ‘biota’. The noun implies nothing about the size or type of area: it can be applied to the inhabitants of a vast forest, a small puddle of rain water, or the entire Earth. The region of the Earth occupied by its biota is known as the ‘biosphere’, sometimes called the ‘ecosphere’ to emphasize the fact that the biota comprises an interacting system which can be studied at the global level.
