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 term 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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The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) is the ecological component of the more general Metabolic Scaling Theory and Kleiber's law. It posits that the metabolic rate of organisms is the fundamental biological rate that governs most observed patterns in ecology. MTE is part of a larger set of theory known as metabolic scaling theory that attempts to provide a unified theory for the importance of metabolism in driving pattern and process in biology from the level of cells all the way to the biosphere.

MTE is based on an interpretation of the relationships between body size, body temperature, and metabolic rate across all organisms. Small-bodied organisms tend to have higher mass-specific metabolic rates than larger-bodied organisms. Furthermore, organisms that operate at warm temperatures through endothermy or by living in warm environments tend towards higher metabolic rates than organisms that operate at colder temperatures. This pattern is consistent from the unicellular level up to the level of the largest animals and plants on the planet. (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.

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

Image 1Loch 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 2a) A trophic pyramid showing the different trophic levels in a community. b) A food web of the same community (from Community (ecology))
Image 3Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 4Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 5An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 6A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology. (from Community (ecology))
Image 7The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 8This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 9Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 10Table visualising size-symmetric competition, using fish as consumers and crabs as resources. (from Community (ecology))
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 12Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 13A 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 14Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 15Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 16A red-chested cuckoo chick being fed by a significantly smaller Cape robin-chat adult (from Community (ecology))
Image 17Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 18Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 19Global 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 20The 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 21
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 22Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 23Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 24A generalised graph of a predator-prey population density cycle (from Community (ecology))
Image 25Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)

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WikiProject Ecology

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

Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in the relative fitness endowed on them by their own particular complement of observable characteristics. It is a key law or mechanism of evolution which changes the heritable traits characteristic of a population or species over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with artificial selection, which is intentional, whereas natural selection is not.

For Darwin natural selection was a law or principle which resulted from three different kinds of process: inheritance, including the transmission of heritable material from parent to offspring and its development (ontogeny) in the offspring; variation, which partly resulted from an organism's own agency (see phenotype; Baldwin effect); and the struggle for existence, which included both competition between organisms and cooperation or 'mutual aid' (particularly in 'social' plants and social animals). (Full article...)

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Portrait by Ernst Hildebrand (1895)

Karl August Möbius (7 February 1825 in Eilenburg – 26 April 1908 in Berlin) was a German zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a director of the Natural History Museum in Berlin. (Full article...)

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... 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 wampum artist Elizabeth James-Perry also works on ecological restoration projects, including the reintroduction of native plant life?
... that Enriqueta Medellín, a Mexican surgeon, has an ecological center and environmental prize named after her in the state of Aguascalientes?
... 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 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?

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“

We’re never going to have respectful and reverential relationships with the planet—and sensible policies about what we put in the air, the soil, the water—if very young children don’t begin learning about these things literally in their houses, backyards, streets and schools. We need to have human beings who are oriented that way from their earliest memories.

”

— Elise Boulding

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Ecology news

From the Wikinews Environment portal

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

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Crop Biotech Update is a weekly e-newsletter published by the Global Knowledge Center on Crop Biotechnology that summarizes global news on agricultural biotechnology with implications for developing countries, highlights of research, documents and events. CBU also comes with a bi-monthly Biofuels Supplement that features new developments in energy crops production, processing, policy, and economics. (Full article...)

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... restoration ecology is the scientific study and practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human intervention and action, within a short time frame? Restoration ecology emerged as a separate field in ecology in the 1980s.
(Pictured left: Recently constructed wetland regeneration in Australia, on a site previously used for agriculture)

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