Biotic compenents

Biotic Components
It comprises the living part of the environment, which includes the association of a number of interrelated populations belonging to different species inhabiting a common environment. The populations are those of animal community, plant community and microbial community.
Biotic community is distinguished into autotrophs, heterotrophs and saprotrophs.

1- Autotrophs (Greek: auto - self, trophos - feeder) are also called producers, convertors or transducers. These are photosynthetic plants, generally chlorophyll bearing, which synthesize high-energy complex organic compounds (or food) from the inorganic raw materials with the help of sunlight, and this process is referred as photosynthesis. Autortophs form the core of all biotic system.
In terrestrial ecosystems, the autotrophs are mainly the rooted plants.
In aquatic ecosystems, the floating plants called phytoplankton and the shallow water rooted plants called macrophytes are the dominant producers.
2- Heterotrophs (Greek: heteros - other; trophs - feeder) are called consumers, which are generally animals feeding on other organisms.
Consumer s also referred as phagotrophs (phago - to ingest or swallow) or macroconsumers are mainly herbivores and carnivores and other group is called omnivores.