General structures of terrestrial communities

Autotrophs• The presence and dominance of the

rooted green plants are the chief food maker and also provide shelter for other organisms and play an important role modifying the earth’s surface.

Raunkier System (1934)• Christian C. Raunkier• System for categorizing plants using

life-form categories.• The system is based on the place of

the plant’s growth-point or the renewal bud during seasons, and the corresponding protection provided during unfavorable cold or dry periods.

Raunkier System• Epiphytes• Phanerophytes• Chameophytes• Hemi-Crytophytes• Cryptophytes or Geophytes• Therophytes

Epiphytes• Plants growing on other plants• Air plants, no roots in the soil• Epiphytes, or air plants, grow

everywhere but can be found mainly on the branches, trunks, and even the leaves of trees. The name 'epiphyte' comes from the Greek word 'epi' meaning 'upon' and 'phyton' meaning 'plant'.

• Different types of epiphytes may grow on the same tree, including orchids, cacti, bromeliads, aroids, lichens, mosses and ferns. They begin their life in the canopy from seeds or spores transported there by birds or winds.

Phanerophytes• Aerial plants• Renewal buds exposed on upright

shoots.• Examples are trees, shrubs, stem

succulents, herbaceous stems, and lianas (vines)• Typical in warm and moist

environment

Chameophytes• Chamaephytes• On the ground• Renewal bud at the

surface of the ground.• Found in cool, dry

climate

Hemi-Crytophytes• Buds are near or just

below the soil surface• Shoot apical meristems

are borne at or near soil level, as in biennial and perennial rosette plants, likeDaucus, Taraxacum, or Verbascum.

Cryptophytes or Geophytes

• Hidden• Bud in or just below

soil surface• Shoot apical

meristems are borne below the soil level, at the tip of a more or less elongate underground stem, or rhizome.

Therophytes• Theros-summer• Shoot apical meristems

persist during unfavorable climatic conditions only within seeds. Annuals and desert ephemerals are examples of therophytes.

Phagotrophs• Macroconsumers• Primary consumers • Include not only small

organisms such as insects, very large hervivores, such as the hoofed mammals.

Saprotrops• Microconsumers• Organsims which carry on

the mineralization of organic matter and perform other valuable functions in the terrestrial environment are chiefly the bacteria and fungi

• Also include protozoa and other small animals.

Microbiota• Includes soil algae,

the bacteria, fungi, and protozoa

Mesobiota• Includes the

nematodes, the small oligochaete worms, the smaller larvae, and especially the microarthropods; of the latter, the soil mite and sprintailas.

Macrobiota• Includes the roots

of plants, the larger insects, earthworms, and other organism which can easily be sorted by hand.

References/Credits to:

• Google images• www.cooltext.com• http://www.slideshare.net/cadion_jhen11/ec

ology-report• http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/

rainforest/Edit560s6/www/plants/epiphytes.html

• http://courses.eeb.utoronto.ca/eeb337/B_How/307B2life_forms.html