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Aquatic ecology studies freshwater and marine ecosystems, including human impact. It involves studying natural populations, economic organisms, and human activities such as pollution. The field offers many areas of study and requires an ecology degree with advanced training for some.
Aquatic ecology is a branch of the science of ecology that deals with the study of aquatic ecosystems. This field can be divided into two divisions: freshwater ecology and marine ecology. Since most of the Earth is covered in water, understanding aquatic ecosystems is very important, especially since water is essential for the survival of all life on Earth. Without water, the Earth would be a very different place, and there probably wouldn’t be any ecologists around to study it.
Freshwater ecology involves rivers, lakes, streams, seasonal water bodies, groundwater repositories, and their surrounding areas, while marine ecology deals with the ocean. Estuaries, where freshwater meets saltwater, can be studied by ecologists from both, and sometimes both, fields, working cooperatively on projects that require the expertise of freshwater and marine ecologists. Because water systems are interconnected, there is great cooperation between professionals working in various aspects of aquatic ecology and between aquatic ecologists and other members of the ecology profession.
Whether an ecologist works with salt or fresh water, there are a number of topics of interest in aquatic ecology. Aquatic ecologists study natural populations of organisms in water, learning about natural variations and the impact of influences such as temperature, salinity, water depth, location, and season. Ecologists may be interested specifically in organisms of economic importance or in the biology of an ecosystem as a whole.
Aquatic ecologists are also interested in human interactions with the environment and the impact of human activities on aquatic ecosystems, ranging from oil spills in the ocean to agricultural runoff into lakes and streams. Some human activities have unintended consequences, and these consequences can take on epic dimensions in the world of aquatic ecology, as all water ends up flowing into the ocean and the world’s oceans are all connected. A microbe in the Ganges can end up in a port in Britain and ecologists can explore the route the microbe took to get there and whether or not human activities played a role.
There are a huge number of fields of study available to people working in aquatic ecology, including water conservation, environmental conservation, commercial uses of aquatic resources, pollution, water use history, water, water use policies, and the study of unique organisms in various aquatic environments around the world. People typically enter this field by taking an ecology degree, focusing on issues of aquatic interest, with some pursuing advanced training in graduate school to receive additional qualifications and experience.
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