In biology, abiotic components are non-living chemical and physical factors in the environment. Abiotic phenomena underlie all of biology, but at the same time both are better forgotten in the direct analysis of life as such. More generally, the sciences concentrated on lower level explanation are better forgotten when dealing with higher level phenomena.
Those underlying factors affect different plants, animals and fungi to different extents. Some plants are mostly water starved, so humidicity plays a larger role in their biology. Archaebacteria require very high temperatures, or pressures, or unusual concentrations of chemical substances such as sulfur, because of their specialization into extreme conditions. Certain fungi have evolved to survive mostly at the temperature, the humidity, the stability, and the (grantedly biological) feed of nutrients present in the human vagina: genus Candida.
Taxonomy
Abiotic components can be split into three main categories: climatic, edaphic and social.
Climatic factors include sunlight, humidity, temperature, atmosphere, and so on.
Edaphic factors are things to do with the nature of the soil and ground, such as the geology of the land and the soil type.
Social factors include land use, water resources, etc.
