What is ecology?
Ecology is the study of organisms and their relationship with their surroundings. Specifically, ecologists study the interaction between an organism and its environment. An example would be the earth and us (humans). Some ecologists study this. Some ecologists study a specific species or habitat. They might study the behavior of a single species to see how it interacts with other organisms and the environment. Or, an ecologist might study many different species that either depend on each other (a food web, for example), or compete with each other for food and space. There are many fields of ecology with lots of things still to be discovered. If you want to know what an ecologist does, check out the KDE Ecologist Activities page.
Ecology is the study of the interactions between organisms and their environment. Various different species living in the same place, interacting amongst themselves and with their environment together form an ecosystem. Within an ecosystem there are several food webs. A food web is an overview of which species in an environment consume which species (plant, animal or both). A healthy ecosystem has a variety of organisms that play different roles in various food chains. If the ecosystem loses one of its members, it can be crippled. For instance, if owls in the forest food web would die out, rodents might start to multiply at an enormous speed, causing them to overrun the area and finish resources that other animals also use. Ecologists are people that study the interactions between organisms and their environment within food webs or other ecological relationships. Fieldwork is an essential component of this study. Laboratory experiments are also applied, under field conditions. Most of
Ecology is a branch of biology which is focused on the examination of living organisms in the natural environment. Ecologists look at how organisms interact with the environment and each other, and they study the complex and interconnected systems which influence life on Earth. Ecology is also sometimes known as environmental biology, and there are a number of subdisciplines within this branch of the sciences which deal with specific topics of interest, such as the relationship between humans and the natural environment. Researchers in ecology can study individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems. At each level, there are more things to learn about. The natural environment is usually heavily interconnected; researchers can focus on a single population of plants or animals, for example, and find much fodder for study, ranging from how that population shapes the physical environment to how other organisms interact with it. For example, ruminant populations can create paths and
ecol-o-gy \ i-‘klj\ n. pl. -gies [G kologie, fr. k-ec- + -logie -logy] (1858) 1. A branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments. 2. The totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment. 3. HUMAN ECOLOGY. (Source: Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary) Ecology 1873, coined by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) as Okologie, from Greek oikos “house, dwelling place, habitation” + -logia “study of.” Ecosystem is from 1935. Ecosphere (1953) is the region around a star where conditions allow life-bearing planets to exist. (Source: Online Etymology Dictionary) Environment 1603, “state of being environed”; sense of “nature, conditions in which a person or thing lives” first recorded 1827 (used by Carlyle to render German Umgebung); specialized ecology sense first recorded 1956. Environmentalism was coined 1923 as a psychological term (in the nature vs. nurture debate); the ecological sense is 1972 (environmentalist in t
