But organisms also interact with each other and with their surrounding environment. This aspect, which is ecology, has a very special set of effects. Lets look at the earth. What we see is a function of life itself - maintaining the atmosphere and regulating Earth's temperature, even the color. Life is active chemical system separated from its surroundings and out of chemical equilibrium with its surroundings.
Life reproduces with heredity.
There is variation in that heredity. Living things grow and develop. There is evolution of populations, adaptation, and innovation. There are species that are reproductively isolated from other species and on their own evolutionary trajectories. Species make societies of kin, and parasitic to symbiotic relationships with other species.