Ecology
Ecology (from Greek oîkos, "house"; -λογία, -logos, study
of) is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the distri-
bution and abundance of organisms and their interac-
tions with their environment.[1] The environment of an
organism includes all external factors, including abiotic
ones such as climate and geology, and biotic factors, in-
cluding members of the same species (conspecifics) and
other species that share a habitat.[2] If the general life
science of biology is viewed as a hierarchy of levels of
organization, from molecular processes, to cells, tissues
and organs, and finally to the individual, the population
and the ecosystem, then the study of the latter three
levels belongs within the purview of ecology.
Examples of objects of ecological study include: Pop-
ulation processes,
including reproductive behavior,
mortality, bioenergetics and migrations, interspecific in-
teractions such as predation, competition, parasitism
and mutualism, plant and animal community structures
and their function and resilience, and biogeochemical
cycling. Because of its vast scope, ecological science is
often closely related to other disciplines. Thus, molecu-
lar ecology addresses ecological questions using tools
from genetics, paleoecology uses tools from archeology,
and theoretical ecologists use often highly complex
mathematical models to explore how ecosystems and
their elements function.
Aside from pure scientific inquiry, ecology is also a
highly applied science. Much of natural resource man-
agement, such as forestry, fisheries, wildlife manage-
ment and habitat conservation is directly related to eco-
logical sciences and many problems in agriculture, urb-
an development and public health are informed by eco-
logical considerations.
The term "ecology" has also been appropriated for
philosophical ideologies like social ecology and deep
ecology and is sometimes used as a synonym for the nat-
ural environment or environmentalism. Likewise "ecolo-
gical" is often taken in the sense of environmentally
friend