WHAT DOES ECOLOGY STUDY? (OBJECT OF STUDY) - BIOLOGY - 2025

The Ecology (from Greek: οἶκος, "house" or "living relations") is the branch of biological science that studies the environmental systems, and its field of scientific study the distributions, abundance and relationships of organisms and their interactions with the environment.

Ecology includes the study of populations and communities of plants and animals and ecosystems. Ecosystems describe the network of relationships between organisms at different levels of organization.

That is why it is said that ecology studies environmental systems, while ecology is not interested in the individual components found in the natural world in isolation, but rather in the way in which these parts interact.

Because ecology refers to any form of biodiversity, ecologists investigate everything from the role of tiny bacteria in recycling nutrients to the effects of the rainforest on Earth's atmosphere.

The discipline of ecology emerged from the natural sciences in the late 19th century. It should be noted that ecology is not synonymous with the environment, environmentalism or environmental science. It is closely related to the disciplines of physiology, evolution, genetics, and behavior.

Field of study of ecology

Like many of the natural sciences, a conceptual understanding of ecology is found in the broader details of the study, including:

1- Life processes that explain the adaptations.

2- Distribution and abundance of organisms.

3- The movement of materials and energy through living communities.

4- How ecosystems develop.

5- How and to what extent biodiversity is distributed.

There are many practical applications of ecology in conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management (agriculture, forestry, fisheries), urban planning (urban ecology), community health, economics, basic and applied science and provides a conceptual framework for understand and investigate human social interaction (human ecology).

Global patterns of biological diversity are complex. Complexity in ecology is of at least six different types: spatial, temporal, structural, procedural, behavioral, and geometric.

For example, small-scale patterns do not necessarily explain large-scale phenomena.

Ecologists have identified emergent and self-organizing phenomena that operate at different scales of environmental influence, from molecular to planetary, and that require different sets of scientific explanation.

Long-term ecological studies provide important background information for better understanding the complexity of ecosystems over broader time scales and spatial.

Ecology scope

The scope of ecology is very broad, since it encompasses all organisms that live on Earth and their physical and chemical environment.

For this reason, the field is generally divided into different levels of study including: organism, population, community, ecosystem and landscape ecology.

Ecology of Organisms

The ecology of organisms examines how individuals interact with their environment, which is made up of biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) components.

At this level, ecology examines how organisms adapt to these living and non-living components of their environment.

These adaptations can be behavioral (behavioral) or a physiological or morphological adaptation that allows the species to survive in its environment.

Population ecology

A population is a group of individuals belonging to the same species and living in the same geographic area at any given time. They use the same natural resources and are affected by similar environmental factors.

Population ecology examines the factors that affect population density and distribution. Population density is the number of individuals in a given area or volume.

Population distribution is the way in which individuals of that species are spread within that area. It's basically how populations change over time.

By looking at the birth and death rates of specific populations, ecologists can determine the carrying capacity (maximum number of individuals) that a habitat can sustain.

This helps determine if a species will thrive in a particular area, if it is endangered, or if its numbers need to be controlled for other species to thrive and resources to be replenished.

For example, the human carrying capacity of the Earth is estimated to be around 12 billion. In 2011, the Earth's population is estimated to have reached 7 billion and continues to grow exponentially.

Community ecology

A biological community is made up of two or more populations of different species that inhabit a particular geographic area. Community ecology examines the interactions between populations, for example, competition and predation.

One way to represent these relationships is through a food web, which shows predators and prey in a biological community.

Ecosystem ecology

Ecosystems are natural systems that are made up of living and non-living things interacting together. Ecosystems come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and while they share many characteristics, each one is unique.

Ecosystems have limits, but it can often be challenging to determine where one ecosystem ends and another begins.

Ecosystem ecology arises from the need to establish a specific field of study given the complexity of ecosystems, with their multiple components and the importance of the information they contain about our natural world.

While the actual study of ecosystems has been going on for much longer, the term for the study of whole, living systems was developed in 1942.

Landscape ecology

Landscape ecology is the study of the ecological effects of the spatial pattern of ecosystems, which involves the study of the distribution and abundance of elements within landscapes.

Landscape ecology is the science of studying and improving the relationships between ecological processes in the environment and particular ecosystems.

As a highly interdisciplinary science in systems ecology, landscape ecology integrates biophysical and analytical approaches with humanistic and holistic perspectives through the natural and social sciences.

References

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