Habitat can be defined as: 1. the natural environment of an organism; place that is natural for the life and growth of an organism. 2. the place where a person or thing is usually found. 3. a special environment for living in over an extended period. A habitat is the area or natural environment in which an organism or population normally lives. A habitat is made up of physical factors such as soil, moisture, range of temperature, and availability of light as well as biotic factors such as the availability of food and the presence of predators. A habitat is not necessarily a geographic area—for a parasitic organism it is the body of its host or even a cell within the host's body.