what is ecology?

Question

everything about ecology. please dont use big words, what are the branches of eclolgy and lost of facts and details.!!!!!!!!please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

If you look at the roots of the word you'll get a really good understanding:

"eco" means "home" and "-ology" is the suffix (end) of a word indicating "scientific study"; so "ecology" means, simply, the study of our home planet and everything that occurs here. So, I'm going to disagree with the above answers and say that Ecology is the prime study area and all other branches of scientific study derive from this....

Imagine the Earth as a tree and all the branches of Ecology come from the trunk:

*geology (the study of the rocks, soil and everything which makes them including historical records);
geomorphology (how the shape of the earth affects the surroundings and how the shape came to be - earthquakes, plate tectonics (movemet of the earth) and erosion amongst other things);
*geography (why certain physical things are located where they are, including populations of people and the countries in which the live);
*biology (the study of living organisms);
*botany (plants);
*forest ecology (why forests grow where they do and the interactions which occur within them - my particular speciality. There are also a large number of sub-fields within this rather broad category like the study of sub-tropical and tropical forests, cool and warm temperate forests, boreal forests (cold northern places));
*mycology (the study of fungi and mushrooms);
*mammalogy (the study of mammals);
*climatology (the study of the climate of the earth) and
*human ecology (which is a separate branch which deals with our own specific place in the biosphere - it is NOT another "name" for ecology as someone above suggested...that's anthropormorphic (human-centred) arrogance!)....

That list is incomplete, but it will give you a launching platform to do some more research, methinks.

Hope it helps!


Love and Light,


Jarrah

Answer 2

Ecology is usually considered a branch of biology, the general science that studies living organisms.

Answer 3

Ecology is the general science that studies living organisms. It draws heavily on many other branches of science, especially geology and geography, meteorology, pedology, genetics, chemistry, and physics.

Answer 4

Ecology is the study of the interactions between organisms and their environment. For all the divisions, etc., see the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology

Answer 5

The 'feeling' I get from this is that we are to think of ecology on a universal level, not limited to water or air alone, but rather how ALL things are inter-dependant on one another! We must try to imagine what kinds of changes may result of changing the Natural order of things, for our futures sake!

Answer 6

e·col·o·gy /ɪˈkɒlədʒi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-kol-uh-jee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms.
2. Also called human ecology. the branch of sociology concerned with the spacing and interdependence of people and institutions.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ecology

Answer 7

its the study of the ecosystem which is basicaly where living things live....it takes into account where different species live (their habitat) the diversity of an area (this basically means how many different species live there this would include both plants and animals) looks into the reproduction of species also have certain species have evolved.....its a very interesting topic basically looking at the environment and what lives there and how they live