Biotic component

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In biology, biotic components are the living things that shape an ecosystem. They are in entirety, anything that affects a living organism that is itself alive. Such things include animals which consume the organism in question, and the living food that the organism consumes. As opposed to abiotic components (non-living components of an organism's environment, such as temperature, light, moisture, air currents, etc.), biotic components are the living components of an organism's environment, such as predators and prey.

For example, if one were to examine a tundra ecosystem for biotic and abiotic components, one would observe things like the extreme temperatures of the day and night, the fast winds, the heavy amount of sunlight, and scarcity of water as abiotic (or non-living components) in the environment. One would observe that for a quail living in the desert, living elements like the quail's prey (insects, seeds, etc.) and predators (coyotes, sparrow hawk, gold eagles, etc.) make up the biotic components of the quail's environment.