Ecology studies living organisms in their natural environment, including their interactions with each other and the complex systems that influence life on Earth. Researchers study individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems, including human impact on the environment. Marine environments, lakes, and streams are also studied.
Ecology is a branch of biology that focuses on the examination of living organisms in the natural environment. Ecologists observe how organisms interact with their environment and with each other, and study the complex, interconnected systems that influence life on Earth. Ecology is also sometimes known as environmental biology and within this branch of science there are numerous subdisciplines that deal with specific topics of interest, such as the relationship between humans and the natural environment.
Ecology researchers may study individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems. At each level, there are more things to learn. The natural environment is usually strongly interconnected; researchers can focus on a single population of plants or animals, for example, and find a lot of material to study, from how that population shapes the physical environment to how other organisms interact with it. For example, ruminant populations can create pathways and troughs, shape the terrain, and they can also influence plant populations by eating some plant species, leaving others alone, and excreting seeds that plants can use to spread.
In the 20th century, ecologists became particularly interested in human activities that had a deleterious effect on the environment, recognizing that humans could have an enormous and not always beneficial influence on nature. For example, the discharge of pollutants into a river can cause a variety of changes in nature, just as paving a wetland can eliminate a habitat and put a strain on the animals and plants that are used to living there.
Ecologists are often interested in observing entire ecosystems and studying all the organisms that live in and influence them. Each ecosystem is home to unique plant and animal species that have adapted to their environment and to each other, and studying them can provide scientists with insights into that ecosystem’s history and the evolutionary roots of the animals that inhabit it. Ecology can also be studied in urban environments.
The study of ecology is not limited to the earth’s environment; Marine environments, lakes, and streams can also provide much food for thought and inspiration for study. The marine environment in particular is not very well understood, with researchers constantly finding that there is more to learn about the ocean, the creatures that inhabit it, and its underlying geography and geology. For example, for centuries people thought the ocean floor was inactive and desolate, but in the 20th century, researchers discovered areas of biological activity around hydrothermal vents, with organisms that had adapted to the dark, high-pressure environment. and low in oxygen content of the deep sea.
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