![]() Behaviors corresponding to higher levels occur at slow rates. System behaviors must first be arrayed into different levels of the organization. ![]() The former focuses on organisms' distribution and abundance, while the latter focuses on materials and energy fluxes. The main subdisciplines of ecology, population (or community) ecology and ecosystem ecology, exhibit a difference not only in scale but also in two contrasting paradigms in the field. Some ecological principles, however, do exhibit collective properties where the sum of the components explain the properties of the whole, such as birth rates of a population being equal to the sum of individual births over a designated time frame. The nature of connections in ecological communities cannot be explained by knowing the details of each species in isolation, because the emergent pattern is neither revealed nor predicted until the ecosystem is studied as an integrated whole. ![]() Each of those aphids, in turn, supports diverse bacterial communities. Several generations of an aphid population can exist over the lifespan of a single leaf. A single tree is of little consequence to the classification of a forest ecosystem, but is critically relevant to organisms living in and on it. An ecosystem's area can vary greatly, from tiny to vast. Because ecosystems are dynamic and don't necessarily follow a linear successional route, changes might occur quickly or slowly over thousands of years before specific forest successional stages are brought about by biological processes. Ecosystems, for example, contain abiotic resources and interacting life forms (i.e., individual organisms that aggregate into populations which aggregate into distinct ecological communities). 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. Levels, scope, and scale of organization Ecosystems sustain life-supporting functions and provide ecosystem services like biomass production (food, fuel, fiber, and medicine), the regulation of climate, global biogeochemical cycles, water filtration, soil formation, erosion control, flood protection, and many other natural features of scientific, historical, economic, or intrinsic value. Ecosystems have biophysical feedback mechanisms that moderate processes acting on living ( biotic) and abiotic components of the planet. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production, nutrient cycling, and niche construction, regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment. Evolutionary concepts relating to adaptation and natural selection are cornerstones of modern ecological theory.Įcosystems are dynamically interacting systems of organisms, the communities they make up, and the non-living ( abiotic) components of their environment. The science of ecology as we know it today began with a group of American botanists in the 1890s. The word ecology ( German: Ökologie) was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel. It encompasses life processes, interactions, and adaptations movement of materials and energy through living communities successional development of ecosystems cooperation, competition, and predation within and between species and patterns of biodiversity and its effect on ecosystem processes.Įcology has practical applications in conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management ( agroecology, agriculture, forestry, agroforestry, fisheries, mining, tourism), urban planning ( urban ecology), community health, economics, basic and applied science, and human social interaction ( human ecology). Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history.Įcology is a branch of biology, and is the study of abundance, biomass, and distribution of organisms in the context of the environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology (from Ancient Greek οἶκος ( oîkos) 'house', and -λογία ( -logía) 'study of') is the study of the relationships among living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment.
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