Portal:Ecology

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Ecology

Ecology (from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) 'house', and -λογία (-logía) 'study of') is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history.

Ecology is a branch of biology, and is the study of abundance, biomass, and distribution of organisms in the context of the environment. 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.

Ecology 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).

The word ecology (German: Ökologie) was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel. The science of ecology as we know it today began with a group of American botanists in the 1890s. Evolutionary concepts relating to adaptation and natural selection are cornerstones of modern ecological theory.

Ecosystems are dynamically interacting systems of organisms, the communities they make up, and the non-living (abiotic) components of their environment. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production, nutrient cycling, and niche construction, regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment. Ecosystems have biophysical feedback mechanisms that moderate processes acting on living (biotic) and abiotic components of the planet. 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. (Full article...)

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An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system that environments and their organisms form through their interaction. The biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.

Ecosystems are controlled by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, parent material which forms the soil and topography, control the overall structure of an ecosystem but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem. Internal factors are controlled, for example, by decomposition, root competition, shading, disturbance, succession, and the types of species present. While the resource inputs are generally controlled by external processes, the availability of these resources within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors. Therefore, internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are also controlled by them. (Full article...)

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Shoaling and schooling

Credit: Jens Petersen

Schooling bigeye trevally. In biology, any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are said to be shoaling and if the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are said to be schooling.

General images

The following are images from various ecology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Table visualising size-symmetric competition, using fish as consumers and crabs as resources. (from Community (ecology))
Image 2Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 3An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 4The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 5Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 6Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 7Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 8A simple trophic cascade diagram. On the right shows when wolves are absent, showing an increase in elks and reduction in vegetation growth. The left one shows when wolves are present and controlling the elk population. (from Community (ecology))
Image 9Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 10Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 11a) A trophic pyramid showing the different trophic levels in a community. b) A food web of the same community (from Community (ecology))
Image 12A generalised graph of a predator-prey population density cycle (from Community (ecology))
Image 13
A freshwater lake in Gran Canaria, an island of the Canary Islands. Clear boundaries make lakes convenient to study using an ecosystem approach.
(from Ecosystem)
Image 14The High Peaks Wilderness Area in the 6,000,000-acre (2,400,000 ha) Adirondack Park is an example of a diverse ecosystem. (from Ecosystem)
Image 15A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology. (from Community (ecology))
Image 16Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 17Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 18This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 19Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions. (from Habitat)
Image 20Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 21Loch Lomond in Scotland forms a relatively isolated ecosystem. The fish community of this lake has remained stable over a long period until a number of introductions in the 1970s restructured its food web. (from Ecosystem)
Image 22Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 23Global oceanic and terrestrial phototroph abundance, from September 1997 to August 2000. As an estimate of autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential and not an actual estimate of it. (from Ecosystem)
Image 24Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 25A red-chested cuckoo chick being feed by a significantly smaller Cape robin-chat adult (from Community (ecology))

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Ecology

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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

The jaguar: a keystone, flagship, and umbrella species, and an apex predator

A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance. The concept was introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. Keystone species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and numbers of various other species in the community. Without keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether. Some keystone species, such as the wolf and lion are also apex predators.

The role that a keystone species plays in its ecosystem is analogous to the role of a keystone in an arch. While the keystone is under the least pressure of any of the stones in an arch, the arch still collapses without it. Similarly, an ecosystem may experience a dramatic shift if a keystone species is removed, even though that species was a small part of the ecosystem by measures of biomass or productivity.

It became a popular concept in conservation biology, alongside flagship and umbrella species. Although the concept is valued as a descriptor for particularly strong inter-species interactions, and has allowed easier communication between ecologists and conservation policy-makers, it has been criticized for oversimplifying complex ecological systems. (Full article...)

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John Stanley Beard (15 February 1916 – 17 February 2011) was a British-born forester and ecologist who resided in Australia. Beard studied at the University of Oxford where he completed his doctoral thesis on tropical forestry.

While working with the Forestry Division in Trinidad and Tobago during the 1940s, Beard developed a system of forest classification for Tropical America and described the forests of Trinidad, Tobago, and the Lesser Antilles; these descriptions remain standard references on the topics. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that wampum artist Elizabeth James-Perry also works on ecological restoration projects, including the reintroduction of native plant life?
... that King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's "cli-fi" thrash metal album addresses a mix of current ecological threats and attempts to find another planet to live on?
... that scientist Adelaida K. Semesi was known as "mama mangroves" due to her specialist knowledge of their ecology?
... that Kühkopf-Knoblochsaue is a large Naturschutzgebiet in Hesse, Germany, protecting the ecology of the floodplains where the Rhine formerly meandered?
... that one of the founders of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, Andrius Domaševičius, had his own private gynecology practice, treating poor women free of charge?
... that gynaecologist Oon Chiew Seng, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2013, was the founding chairperson of the first dementia home in Singapore?

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“

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

”

—Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, 1897

Ecology news

From the Wikinews Environment portal

Additional News Highlights

November 5, 2009: "New ocean forming in African desert."

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The Journal of Wild Culture was a short-lived magazine combining, among other things, artistic perspectives on ecology and environmental issues. It was published in Toronto from 1986 to 1991.

The Journal of Wild Culture (JWC) was the literary organ of The Society for the Preservation of Wild Culture (SPWC), an arts organization devoted to exploring environmental and ecological issues from an artistic perspective, and ideas provoked by the term "wild culture". The magazine and the activities of the Society were best known for carrying on the nature-culture discourse in a "quirky and innovative" manner, and for influencing the way serious themes could be delivered with a sense of play and timeliness. (Full article...)

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