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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Topsoil

Credit: Lynn Betts, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top 2 inches (5.1 cm) to 8 inches (20 cm). It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earth's biological soil activity occurs. Pictured: Terraces, conservation tillage, and conservation buffers save soil, control erosion and improve water quality on this Iowa farm. 1999.

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Aziz Nacib Ab'Sáber (born October 24, 1924) is an environmentalist and one of Brazil´s most respected scientists, honored with the highest awards of Brazilian science in geography, geology, ecology and archaeology. Graduated in geography, he is a former president and current honororary president of the SBPC (Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science), Emeritus Professor of the University of São Paulo and member of the highest rank - Order Grão-Cruz in Earth Sciences - of the Academy of Science.

The contributions of Ab`Saber to science range from the first research of oil camps in Brazil's northeast to surveys of Brazil's natural realms and the restoration of the history of forests, camps and primitive humans over geologic time in South America. He made central contributions to biology, South American archaeology, and to Brazilian ecology, geology and geography.

Ab'Sáber was the first person to classify scientifically the Brazilian and South-America territory in morphoclimatic domains. He also contributed to the "Pleistocene refuge hypothesis", an attempt to explain the distribution of Neotropical taxa as a function of their isolation in forest fragments during glacial periods, which allowed populations to speciate. (Full article...)

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... molecular ecology is a field of evolutionary biology that is concerned with applying molecular population genetics, molecular phylogenetics, and more recently genomics to traditional ecological questions (e.g., species diagnosis, conservation and assessment of biodiversity, species-area relationships, and many questions in behavioral ecology)?

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Ecology news

From the Wikinews Environment portal

• April 23: European Union to reduce carbon emissions by 55% of 1990 levels by 2030
• November 27: Wikinews interviews Craig Farquharson, Liberal Democrat candidate for 2020 Groom by-election
• November 27: Wikinews interviews Sandra Jephcott, Sustainable Australia candidate for 2020 Groom by-election
• December 14: Greta Thunberg named 2019 Time Person of the Year
• November 23: Researchers break down deaths due to power plant pollution in the United States
• November 21: Slippery business: Materials scientists invent new coating for self-cleaning, water-efficient toilets
• October 19: Northern Arapaho Tribe welcomes buffalo herd in Wyoming, United States
• October 12: Scientists describe how 'upside-down rivers' of warm water break Antarctica's ice shelf
• October 5: Voracious fish defend coral reefs against warming, say scientists
• September 8: Scientists report skyrocketing phytoplankton population in aftermath of Kīlauea eruption

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Additional News Highlights

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

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“	Ecology is beginning to slowly shift focus with tentative explorations of what the world would look like if process, rather than matter were the basis for reality What if we defined a species in terms of its life processes? We might seriously doubt whether the California condor or the tall grass prairie can be 'saved' or even 'restored.' Perhaps we can re-create some local conditions that foster a few nests of condors or a few acres of prairie. But the life process of the condor ended with the urbanization of the California foothills and the living ebb and flow of the tall grass prairies died with the plowing of the Great Plains. What if we suggested that a thing is what it does? In this light, the Rocky Mountain locust was a immense aperiodic energy flow that linked life processes on a continental scale.	”
	— Jeffrey A. Lockwood

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Ibis, subtitled the International Journal of Avian Science, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the British Ornithologists' Union. Topics covered include ecology, conservation, behaviour, palaeontology, and taxonomy of birds. It's available for free on the internet for institutions in the developing world through the OARE scheme (Online Access to Research in the Environment). (Full article...)

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Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Ecology

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• WikiProject Environment
  
• WikiProject Ecoregions
  
• WikiProject Extinction
  
• WikiProject Biology
  
• WikiProject Protected areas
• WikiProject Forestry
  
• WikiProject Soil
  
• WikiProject Agriculture
  
• WikiProject Science

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

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