Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relationships between living organisms and their environment. It encompasses the interactions between organisms, their physical surroundings, and other living organisms. Ecologists examine the distribution and abundance of organisms, as well as the processes that influence these patterns, to better understand the functioning of ecosystems.
7 Key excerpts on "Ecology"
eBook - ePub- Oswald J. Schmitz(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Island Press(Publisher)
...Natural ecological systems differ from the container system in that they are comprised of vastly more species with many more interdependencies than those found in the glass container. Understanding these complex interdependencies is the fundamental purpose of that subfield of biology known as Ecology. What Is Ecology? Ecology is a science aimed at understanding: The processes by which living organisms interact with each other and with the physical and chemical components of their surrounding environment. The way those processes lead to patterns in the geographical distribution and abundance of different kinds of organisms. The result of the process leading to a pattern is the assembly of a natural economy. In Ecology such a natural economy is formally called an ecosystem. Ecosystems encapsulate many forms of biological diversity (also called biodiversity). Biodiversity results from a variety among individuals comprising a species owing to sex, age, and genetic differences among those individuals. It also stems from differences between species living together in a geographic location. For example, species may differ in their functional roles (e.g., plant, herbivore, carnivore) and the efficiency with which each carries out its function in different environmental conditions. Biodiversity also arises from the myriad ways that species are linked to each other in ecosystems. As a consequence of these many forms of biodiversity, there is considerable complexity underlying the structure of ecosystems.The challenge in Ecology is resolving this complexity. Biodiversity results from a variety among individuals comprising a species due to sex, age, and ge- netic differences; from differences between species living together in a geographic location; and from the myriad ways that species are linked to each other in ecosystems. As a consequence of these many forms of biodiversity, there is consider- able complexity underlying the structure of ecosystems...
eBook - ePubEcology
From Individuals to Ecosystems
- Michael Begon, Colin R. Townsend(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
...Introduction: Ecology and its Domain Definition and scope of Ecology The word ‘Ecology’ was first used by Ernest Haeckel in 1866. Paraphrasing Haeckel we can describe Ecology as the scientific study of the interactions between organisms and their environment. The word is derived from the Greek oikos, meaning ‘home’. Ecology might therefore be thought of as the study of the ‘home life’ of living organisms. A less vague definition was suggested by Krebs (1972): ‘Ecology is the scientific study of the interactions that determine the distribution and abundance of organisms’. Notice that Krebs’ definition does not use the word ‘environment’; to see why, it is necessary to define the word. The environment of an organism consists of all those factors and phenomena outside the organism that influence it, whether these are physical and chemical (abiotic) or other organisms (biotic). The ‘interactions’ in Krebs’ definition are, of course, interactions with these very factors. The environment therefore retains the central position that Haeckel gave it. Krebs’ definition has the merit of pinpointing the ultimate subject matter of Ecology: the distribution and abundance of organisms – where organisms occur, how many occur there and why. This being so, it might be better still to define Ecology as: the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of organisms and the interactions that determine distribution and abundance. As far as the subject matter of Ecology is concerned, ‘the distribution and abundance of organisms’ is pleasantly succinct. But we need to expand it. The living world can be viewed as a biological hierarchy that starts with subcellular particles, and continues up through cells, tissues and organs. Ecology deals with the next three levels: the individual organism, the population (consisting of individuals of the same species) and the community (consisting of a greater or lesser number of species populations)...
eBook - ePubThis Is Biology
The Science of the Living World
- Ernst Mayr(Author)
- 1998(Publication Date)
- Belknap Press(Publisher)
...CHAPTER TEN What Questions Does Ecology Ask? E cology, among all biological disciplines, is the most heterogeneous and most comprehensive. Almost everyone would agree that it deals with the interactions between organisms and their living as well as nonliving environment, but this definition permits an enormous range of possible inclusion. What, then, is the proper subject matter of Ecology? 1 The term “Ecology” was coined by Haeckel in 1866 for the “household of nature.” In 1869 he proposed a more elaborate definition: “By Ecology we mean the body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature—the investigation of the total relations of the animal both to its inorganic and to its organic environment, including, above all, its friendly and inimical relations with those animals and plants with which it comes directly or indirectly into contact—in a word, Ecology is the study of all those complex interrelations referred by Darwin as the conditions of the struggle for existence.” Despite this baptism by Haeckel, Ecology did not become a truly active field until after about 1920; the founding of ecological societies and of professional journals devoted to Ecology is of even more recent date. But to look at Ecology from another point of view, it is nothing but “self-conscious natural history,” as one ecologist has called it, and an interest in natural history goes back to primitive man. 2 Anything of concern to a naturalist—life history, reproductive behavior, parasitism, enemy thwarting, and so on—is automatically of equal concern to an ecologist. A Brief History of Ecology From Aristotle to Linnaeus and Buffon, natural history was largely descriptive, but not entirely so. In addition to their observations, naturalists also made comparisons and suggested explanatory theories that usually reflected the prevailing Zeitgeist...
eBook - ePubFoundations of Ecology
Classic Papers with Commentaries
- Leslie A. Real, James H. Brown(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- University of Chicago Press(Publisher)
.... .. It is the systems so formed which, from the point of view of the ecologist, are the basic units of nature on the face of the earth. . .. These ecosystems, as we may call them, are of the most various kinds and sizes. They form one category of the multitudinous physical systems of the universe, which range from the universe as a whole down to the atom.” Tansley goes on to discuss the ecosystem as a category of rank equal to the “biome” (Clements, ’16), but points out that the term can also be used in a general sense, as is the word “community.” The ecosystem may be formally defined as the system composed of physical-chemical-biological processes active within a space-time unit of any magnitude, i.e., the biotic community plus its abiotic environment. The concept of the ecosystem is believed by the writer to be of fundamental importance in interpreting the data of dynamic Ecology. TROPHIC DYNAMICS Qualitative food-cycle relationships Although certain aspects of food relations have been known for centuries, many processes within ecosystems are still very incompletely understood. The basic process in trophic dynamics is the transfer of energy from one part of the ecosystem to another. All function, and indeed all life, within an ecosystem depends upon the utilization of an external source of energy, solar radiation. A portion of this incident energy is transformed by the process of photosynthesis into the structure of living organisms. In the language of community economics introduced by Thienemann (’26), auto-trophic plants are producer organisms, employing the energy obtained by photosynthesis to synthesize complex organic substances from simple inorganic substances. Although plants again release a portion of this potential energy in catabolic processes, a great surplus of organic substance is accumulated...
eBook - ePub- Johann F. Moltmann, D.M. Rawson(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...3 BASIC ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF ECOTOXICOLOGY 3.1 THE LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS The objects of ecological study are organisms, each of which represents a complex system of cells and organs. These organisms, in turn, are organized into larger units (populations, communities, ecosystems). Nature’s division into different levels of organization (Figure 3.1) is not arbitrary and has implications for the acquisition of knowledge in all areas of biology (O’NEILL et al., 1986). With each higher level of organization (cell → organism → population → ecosystem), it becomes increasingly difficult to establish clear-cut relationships based on cause and effect, or to maintain an overview of the growing abundance of such relationships. Although the biochemical reactions in cells are manifold and complex, they can be analyzed at this level and are similar in many cells. Interactions between organs can also be explained at the level of individual organisms. But any prognosis of individual development and behavior is necessarily imprecise. For all practical purposes, populations can only be analyzed statistically. On the population level, integrative parameters (e.g. fertility) are being observed to a greater degree in experimental settings, although the changes in such parameters cannot be explained in detail; nor is it necessary to do so. This approach cannot be applied ad infinitum at the ecosystem level because the number of ecosystems which could reasonably be compared on the basis of statistical data is too low...
eBook - ePubSocial Ecology in the Digital Age
Solving Complex Problems in a Globalized World
- Daniel Stokols(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
...Although different in many respects, these distinct branches of Ecology share some important commonalities. The concepts, methods, and findings of ecological science are a valuable starting point for imagining future solutions to seemingly intransigent societal problems. Introducing scholars and practitioners to ecological perspectives can help them comprehend complex problems more broadly and collaborate with others more effectively across disciplinary, cultural, and national divides to mitigate global dilemmas. The Emergence of Biological Ecology Philosophers, historians, and geographers from earliest antiquity have been fascinated by the diversity of plants and animals around them. Aristotle (384–322 BC) classified animals as vertebrate and invertebrate, and his student, Theophrastus (370–285 BC) compiled a detailed taxonomy of plants, Historia Plantarum [ 10, 11 ]. During the 1700s, the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus published Species Plantarum [12] and Systema Naturae [13], presenting a binomial system for naming and classifying plants and animals. In Linnaeus’ nomenclature, each category was identified by two descriptors, its genus and its species (e.g., “homo sapiens” for humans). The taxonomic work begun by the ancient Greeks and extending through the work of Linnaeus in the 18th Century yielded a cumulative database containing the names and characteristics of thousands of plant and animal species...
eBook - ePubEconomic Valuation of Biodiversity
An Interdisciplinary Conceptual Perspective
- Bartosz Bartkowski(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Building upon current ecological literature, it was shown that biodiversity is correlated with ecosystem functioning, particularly with ecosystem stability. Even though there remain unanswered questions and the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship cannot be blindly generalised, it is a crucial aspect for the conceptual arguments developed further on in the book. Notes 1 In an interview conducted by Edward Grumbine, the acknowledged population geneticist and one of the founding fathers of conservation biology, Michael Soulé, replied to the question why diversity is good that this is based on intuition and aesthetics, while admitting that an important goal of conservation biology is advocacy (Grumbine, 1994). 2 Note that there is a similar discussion regarding ecosystem services, which is the reason why CICES includes an ‘accompanying classification of abiotic outputs from natural systems’ (CICES V4.3). 3 In recent years, the concept of biocultural diversity has emerged (Maffi and Woodley, 2010), which has an even stronger focus on the interaction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ systems. 4 In the present book, this term, when applied to biodiversity, is synonymous with the notion of an ‘abstract good’, i.e. one which ‘cannot exist on its own and cannot be identified without observing and interpreting a wide variety of relevant objects’ (Meinard and Grill, 2011, p. 1708). 5 A biodiversity measure or index quantifies one or more aspects of biodiversity directly...
