Ecology
From Wikinfo
[[es:Ecolog�a]]
Ecology (from Greek meaning "study of the home") is the study of the interactions between living things and the environment. The environment includes both the abiotic environment — non-living things like climate and geology — and the biotic environment — living things like plants and animals. Much of ecological research is concerned with the distribution and abundance of organisms and how distributions are influenced by characteristics of the environment. Organisms influence their environment and the environment influences organisms.
From an ecological point of view, the Earth consists of a hydrosphere, a lithosphere, a geosphere and a biosphere. An assemblage of natural communities and species, within areas of ecological potential based on soil, climate and topography parameters are called ecoregions, and constitute a basic element in ecology.
Ecology includes many sub-disciplines including theoretical ecology, applied ecology, behavioral ecology, macroecology, systems ecology, ecosystems ecology, community ecology, population ecology, landscape ecology, conservation ecology, soil ecology, paleoecology, microbial ecology, ecoevolution and agroecology. Ecology also plays important roles in the inter-disciplinary fields of ecological economics, ecological health, ecological design and ecological engineering.
In general the ecology of a region is a self-regulating system in which stable conditions are maintained. In certain situations (usually due to human activity such as cutting down trees) ecological collapse may occur resulting in dramatic changes resulting in a radically changed situation.
An interesting, but somewhat controversial idea in ecologyis the Gaia theory (science).
See also: biome, biophilia, environmentalism, ecology movement, renewable energy, Gaia philosophy
For access to a database of ecology as it relates to economic development, see ELDIS.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Ecology" http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology August 16, 2003
