Portal:Ecology

Ecology

Ecology (from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) 'house' and -λογία (-logía) 'study of') is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their 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 fields such as conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management, and 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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Spatial ecology studies the ultimate distributional or spatial unit occupied by a species. In a particular habitat shared by several species, each of the species is usually confined to its own microhabitat or spatial niche because two species in the same general territory cannot usually occupy the same ecological niche for any significant length of time. (Full article...)

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Arthropod

Credit: Nicolas Pourcelot

A limule (Horseshoe crab) in the Hạ Long Bay, Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. Horseshoe crabs are arthropods that live primarily in shallow ocean waters on soft sandy or muddy bottoms.

General images

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

Image 1Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 2The 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 3Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 4A generalised graph of a predator-prey population density cycle (from Community (ecology))
Image 5Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 6Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 7Loch 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 8Table visualising size-symmetric competition, using fish as consumers and crabs as resources. (from Community (ecology))
Image 9Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 10Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 11Few 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 12Global 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 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 14A 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 15Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 16a) A trophic pyramid showing the different trophic levels in a community. b) A food web of the same community (from Community (ecology))
Image 17Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 18An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 19Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 20Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 21Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 22The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 23This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 24A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology. (from Community (ecology))
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.

Motion camouflage is camouflage which provides a degree of concealment for a moving object, given that motion makes objects easy to detect however well their coloration matches their background or breaks up their outlines.

The principal form of motion camouflage, and the type generally meant by the term, involves an attacker's mimicking the optic flow of the background as seen by its target. This enables the attacker to approach the target while appearing to remain stationary from the target's perspective, unlike in classical pursuit (where the attacker moves straight towards the target at all times, and often appears to the target to move sideways). The attacker chooses its flight path so as to remain on the line between the target and some landmark point. The target therefore does not see the attacker move from the landmark point. The only visible evidence that the attacker is moving is its looming, the change in size as the attacker approaches. (Full article...)

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Crawford Stanley "Buzz" Holling, OC FRSC (December 6, 1930 – August 16, 2019) was a Canadian ecologist, and Emeritus Eminent Scholar and Professor in Ecological Sciences at the University of Florida. Holling was one of the conceptual founders of ecological economics. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... 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 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 Enriqueta Medellín, a Mexican surgeon, has an ecological center and environmental prize named after her in the state of Aguascalientes?
... that gynecologist Mary Lake Polan wrote a medical mystery novel to "demystify" the procedures behind in vitro fertilisation?
... that PlantSims, human–plant hybrids in The Sims 2: Seasons, have been studied as examples of ecofeminism and deep ecology?
... that ancient Roman gynecologists believed that menstrual blood could be used to drive dogs insane?

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“

The use of plant oil as fuel may seem insignificant today. But such products can in time become just as important as kerosene and these coal-tar-products of today.

”

—Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, which originally ran on peanut oil