Stimuli are anything that causes arousal or enables an object to respond or react.
There are many different kinds of stimuli for which is different for every organism, for example, water, light and carbon dioxide are three stimuli and materials needed for photosynthesis in plants to manifest.
In humans, we have nutrients or food, oxygen and water for us to survive. These are stimuli, eyes need light as a stimuli for it see and function. Nasal receptors needs smell as stimuli caused by molecular reactions of an object as a stimuli. And others.