Elements of Ecology

Sanjoy Ningthoujam
Definition
• According to one accepted definition, ecology is the scientific study of the
relationships between organisms and their environment.
• That definition is satisfactory so long as one considers relationships and
environment in their fullest meanings. Environment includes the physical
and chemical conditions as well as the biological or living components of
an organism’s surroundings.
• Relationships include interactions with the physical world as well as with
members of the same and other species.
• The term ecology comes from the Greek words oikos, meaning “the family
household,” and logy, meaning “the study of.” It has the same root word as
economics, meaning “management of the household.”
• German zoologist Ernst Haeckel originally coined the term ecology in 1866.
Relationship between organism and
environment
• Organisms interact with their environment at many levels.
• The physical and chemical conditions surrounding an organism— such as ambient
temperature, moisture, concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and light
intensity—all influence basic physiological processes crucial to survival and growth.
• An organism must acquire essential resources from the surrounding environment and in
doing so must protect itself from becoming food for other organisms.
• It must recognize friend from foe, differentiating between potential mates and possible
predators.
• All of this effort is an attempt to succeed at the ultimate goal of all living organisms: to
pass their genes on to successive generations.
• The environment in which each organism carries out this “struggle for existence” is a
place—a physical location in time and space.
• This environment includes both the physical conditions and the array of organisms that
coexist within its confines. This entity is what ecologists refer to as the ecosystem.
Introduction
• In essence, ecologists seek to explain:
• life processes
• interactions, interrelationships, behaviors, and adaptations of organisms
• the movement of materials and energy through living communities
• the successional development of ecosystems
• the abundance and distribution of organisms and biodiversity in the context
of the environment
Scope of Ecology
• The scope of ecology contains a wide array of interacting levels of organization
spanning micro-level (e.g., cells) to a planetary scale (e.g., biosphere)
phenomena.
• Within the discipline of ecology, researchers work at four specific levels,
sometimes discretely and sometimes with overlap. These levels are organism,
population, community, and ecosystem.
• At the organismal level, ecologists study individual organisms and how they
interact with their environments.
• At the population and community levels, ecologists explore, respectively, how a
population of organisms changes over time and the ways in which that
population interacts with other species in the community.
• Ecologists studying an ecosystem examine the living species (the biotic
components) of the ecosystem as well as the nonliving portions (the abiotic
components), such as air, water, and soil, of the environment.
Ecology and other Disciplines
• Although we explore topics that are typically the subject of disciplines such as biochemistry, physiology, and
genetics, we do so only in the context of understanding the interplay of organisms with their environment.
The study of how plants take up carbon dioxide and lose water for example, belongs to plant physiology.
• Ecology looks at how these processes respond to variations in rainfall and temperature. This information is
crucial to understanding the distribution and abundance of plant populations and the structure and function
of ecosystems on land.
• Likewise, we must draw upon many of the physical sciences, such as geology, hydrology, and meteorology.
They will help us chart other ways organisms and environments interact.
• For instance, as plants take up water, they influence soil moisture and the patterns of surface water flow. As
they lose water to the atmosphere, they increase atmospheric water content and influence regional patterns
of precipitation.
• The geology of an area influences the availability of nutrients and water for plant growth. In each example,
other scientific disciplines are crucial to understanding how individual organisms both respond to and shape
their environment.
• In the 21st century, ecology is entering a new frontier, one that requires expanding our view of ecology to
include the dominant role of humans in nature.
• Among the many environmental problems facing humanity, four broad and interrelated areas are crucial:
human population growth, biological diversity, sustainability, and global climate change.
Sub Disciplines
• Ecology is a broad biological science and can be divided into many sub-disciplines using various
criteria. Many of these fields overlap, complement and inform each other, and few of these
disciplines exist in isolation.
• applied ecology, the practice of employing ecological principles and understanding to solve real world
problems (includes agroecology and conservation biology);
• biogeochemistry, effect of biota on global chemistry, and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the
Earth's chemical components in time and space.
• biogeography, the study of the geographic distributions of species ;
• chemical ecology, which deals with the ecological role of biological chemicals used in a wide range of areas
including defense against predators and attraction of mates;
• community ecology, which focus on understanding how different species interact with each other;
• conservation ecology, which studies how to reduce the risk of species extinction;
• ecological succession, which focuses on understanding directed vegetation change;
• Ecosystem ecology
• ecophysiology which studies the interaction of physiological traits with the abiotic environment;
• ecotoxicology, which looks at the ecological role of toxic chemicals (often pollutants, but also naturally
occurring compounds);
• evolutionary ecology or ecoevolution which looks at evolutionary changes in the context of the populations
and communities in which the organisms exist;
• fire ecology, which looks at the role of fire in the environment of plants and animals and its effect on ecological communities;
• functional ecology, the study of the roles, or functions, that certain species (or groups thereof) play in an ecosystem;
• global ecology, which examines ecological phenomena at the largest possible scale, addressing macroecological questions;
• landscape ecology, which studies the interactions between discrete elements of a landscape;
• macroecology, the study of large scale phenomena;
• marine ecology, and aquatic ecology, where the dominant environmental milieu is water;
• microbial ecology, the ecology of micro-organisms;
• microecology, the study of small scale phenomena;
• Molecular ecology, the study of ecological processes in the molecular level
• paleoecology, which seeks to understand the relationships between species in fossil assemblages;
• population ecology, which tries to gain understanding and predicting spatio-temporal dynamics of a single species. Includes Metapopulation ecology and Demography;
• quantitative ecology, the development of mathematical and statistical tools to interpret and analyze ecological data;
• restoration ecology, which attempts to understand the ecological basis needed to restore impaired or damaged ecosystems;
• soil ecology, the ecology of the pedosphere;
• theoretical ecology, the development of ecological theory, usually with mathematical, statistical and/or computer modeling tools;
• urban ecology, the study of ecosystems in urban areas.