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.
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.