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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Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and infection. Mycology branches into the field of phytopathology, the study of plant diseases. The two disciplines are closely related, because the vast majority of plant pathogens are fungi. A biologist specializing in mycology is called a mycologist. (Full article...)

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Mimicry

Credit: PLoS, Image Credit: (A, C, E, and F) by Rob Knell; (B and D) by Tom Ings

Wasp mimicry - A and B show real wasps; the rest are mimics: three hoverflies and one beetle. Mimicry is part of the evolutionary process of adaptation.

General images

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

Image 1The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 2Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 3Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 4Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 5Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 6An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 7Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
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 9This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 10Loch 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 11The 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 12Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 13Few 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 14A generalised graph of a predator-prey population density cycle (from Community (ecology))
Image 15Global 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 16A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology. (from Community (ecology))
Image 17Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 18
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 19A red-chested cuckoo chick being feed by a significantly smaller Cape robin-chat adult (from Community (ecology))
Image 20Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 21Table visualising size-symmetric competition, using fish as consumers and crabs as resources. (from Community (ecology))
Image 22Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 23a) A trophic pyramid showing the different trophic levels in a community. b) A food web of the same community (from Community (ecology))
Image 24Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 25Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)

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.

Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes.

There are six major parasitic strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), trophically-transmitted parasitism (by being eaten), vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropredation. One major axis of classification concerns invasiveness: an endoparasite lives inside the host's body; an ectoparasite lives outside, on the host's surface. (Full article...)

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Joan Roughgarden (born 13 March 1946) is an American ecologist and evolutionary biologist. She has engaged in theory and observation of coevolution and competition in Anolis lizards of the Caribbean, and recruitment limitation in the rocky intertidal zones of California and Oregon. She has more recently become known for her rejection of sexual selection, her theistic evolutionism, and her work on holobiont evolution. (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 wampum artist Elizabeth James-Perry also works on ecological restoration projects, including the reintroduction of native plant life?
... that Kühkopf-Knoblochsaue is a large Naturschutzgebiet in Hesse, Germany, protecting the ecology of the floodplains where the Rhine formerly meandered?
... that the British political theorist Chris Armstrong has called for a "blue new deal" to secure ecological resilience for the ocean and a just blue economy?
... that gynecologist Mary Lake Polan wrote a medical mystery novel to "demystify" the procedures behind in vitro fertilisation?
... 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?

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“

The cleanup costs of polluting a river, injecting pesticides into the ground water, or putting noxious gases into the air have not been figured into the cost of the manufacturing or agribusiness that put them there in the first place. Historically, the economic incentive has been to pollute.

”

— Gloria Steinem

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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