ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Biotic material

Biotic material is stuff that comes from living things, like animals and plants. Imagine you have an apple in your hand. The apple is biotic material because it came from a tree that was alive! But if you have a rock in your other hand, that's not biotic material because it didn't come from something that was alive.

Biotic material can be all sorts of things, from the food you eat to the clothes you wear. Even the air you breathe has biotic material in it! Why? Because the air has oxygen in it, and oxygen is produced by plants. Plants are alive, which makes the oxygen they produce biotic material.

When living things die, they become biotic material too. A fallen leaf on the ground is biotic material because it used to be a part of a living tree. Even the poop that animals leave behind is biotic material because it came from a living animal.

Overall, anything that comes from a living thing, or used to be a living thing, is biotic material. It's important because it helps make up the world around us and provides us with everything we need to survive!
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