Trophic structure

Organisms in a community are closely interrelated with each other through feeding relationships.

Another aspect which is quite obvious in a community is that in areas of extreme climatic conditions both species diversity or the number of species are greatly reduced. This is because only a few species are able to adapt to the difficult environment.

Communities which extend over a considerable area generally have also locally diverse conditions of soil or topography. Thus in a community local habitats may be supporting markedly different species which are very different from the general community composition.

Members of a community share the same habitat and its resources. A community represents only the living organisms occupying a given area. When both the living and non-living components are considered as an integrated unit we would be dealing with an ecosystem, a concept which will be considered in the next subsection.