Portal:Ecology

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

Intertidal ecology is the study of intertidal ecosystems, where organisms live between the low and high tide lines. At low tide, the intertidal is exposed whereas at high tide, the intertidal is underwater. Intertidal ecologists therefore study the interactions between intertidal organisms and their environment, as well as between different species of intertidal organisms within a particular intertidal community. The most important environmental and species interactions may vary based on the type of intertidal community being studied, the broadest of classifications being based on substrates—rocky shore and soft bottom communities.

Organisms living in this zone have a highly variable and often hostile environment, and have evolved various adaptations to cope with and even exploit these conditions. One easily visible feature of intertidal communities is vertical zonation, where the community is divided into distinct vertical bands of specific species going up the shore. Species ability to cope with abiotic factors associated with emersion stress, such as desiccation determines their upper limits, while biotic interactions e.g.competition with other species sets their lower limits. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Selected image - show another

Pangaea

Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

An animation of the Earth's hypothesized Pangaea separation. Pangaea is hypothesized as a supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration.

More selected pictures

General images

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

Image 1Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 2This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 3Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 4Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 5Few 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 6A red-chested cuckoo chick being feed by a significantly smaller Cape robin-chat adult (from Community (ecology))
Image 7Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 8Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 9An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 10A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology. (from Community (ecology))
Image 11Global 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 12a) A trophic pyramid showing the different trophic levels in a community. b) A food web of the same community (from Community (ecology))
Image 13The 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 14Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 15Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 16Table visualising size-symmetric competition, using fish as consumers and crabs as resources. (from Community (ecology))
Image 17Loch 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 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 19Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 20A generalised graph of a predator-prey population density cycle (from Community (ecology))
Image 21Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 22Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 23A 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 24Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 25The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Ecology

edit

Things you can do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Create any of the missing articles listed on the WikiProject Ecology page, Alkali bee (Pollinator decline), Ecosystem function (presently a redirect), Nutrient flow (Synecology), Seed crop (Pollinator decline)
Verify : Agroecosystem, Biologist, Botany, Ecological pyramid, Ecological selection, Ecological succession, Ecotone, Functional ecology, Macroecology, Microbial ecology, Molecular biology, Uncontacted peoples
Wikify : Add {{Portal|Ecology}} to the See also sections of ecology-related articles.
Other : For additional tasks, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ecology/to do

– When a task is completed, please remove it from the list.

Recognized content - show another

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

In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation.

Among parasitoids, strategies range from living inside the host (endoparasitism), allowing it to continue growing before emerging as an adult, to paralysing the host and living outside it (ectoparasitism). Hosts can include other parasitoids, resulting in hyperparasitism; in the case of oak galls, up to five levels of parasitism are possible. Some parasitoids influence their host's behaviour in ways that favour the propagation of the parasitoid. (Full article...)

List of recognized articles

Selected biography - show another

Paul Bigelow Sears (December 17, 1891 – April 30, 1990) was an American ecologist and writer. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that gynecologist Mary Lake Polan wrote a medical mystery novel to "demystify" the procedures behind in vitro fertilisation?
... 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 PlantSims, human–plant hybrids in The Sims 2: Seasons, have been studied as examples of ecofeminism and deep ecology?
... that Luxembourgian myrmecologist Robert Stumper also played as a goalkeeper for his nation's football team?
... that gynaecologist Oon Chiew Seng, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2013, was the founding chairperson of the first dementia home in Singapore?
... 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?

Selected quote - show another

“

A forest ecology is a delicate one. If the forest perishes, its fauna may go with it. The Athshean word for world is also the word for forest.

”

—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word for World is Forest

More selected quotes

Ecology news

From the Wikinews Environment portal

Additional News Highlights

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

More ecology news on Wikinews

Selected publication - show another

Environmental Research Letters is an open-access electronic-only peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in all aspects of environmental science. Numerical modelling or simulation, as well as theoretical and experimental approaches to environmental science form the core content. Approaches from a range of physical and natural sciences, economics, and political, sociological and legal studies are also present.

Official website: Environmental Research Letters (Full article...)

More selected publications

Related portals

More did you know - show another

... the Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet?

Other "Did you know" facts...

Read more...