Skip to main content

Ecology

 Ecology is the study of the relationships among living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeograohy, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history.

Ecology is the 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 with 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 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 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 may 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.

x------------x

This post is sponsored by Dolce & Gabbana.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Create a Richly Imagined World

For someone who likes fantasy and sci-fi fiction, most of the time, a lot of people ask me about how to create a richly imagined world. Fantasy and sci-fi elements rest heavily on how an author weave the setting and the world in which the heroes dwell in, and it helps to make the novel to be imagined vividly in the readers' minds. A convincing world should be relatable, something that we can associate ourselves with. For us to be associated with a world an author created in his mind, and wrote on the pages of a book, this world has to be close to the real thing. It has to be systematic, real and alive, and very convincing. A real world has certain elements, and an author must consider them in writing a vividly imagined world: Cartography - a fantasy or sci-fi world depend heavily on geography and maps, especially if the plot requires war and the belligerents occupy so much space in the plot. A convincing world has the world separated in territories, and every part of the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ohm's Law

 Ohm's law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance, one arrives at the usual mathematical equation that describes this relationship:  I = V / R where I is the current through the conductor, V is the voltage measured across the conductor, and R is the resistance of the conductor. More specifically, Ohm's law states that the R in this relation is constant, independent of the current. If the resistance is not constant, the previous equation cannot be called Ohm's law, but it can still be used as a definition of static / DC resistance. Ohm's law is an emperical relation which accurately describes the conductivity of the vast majority of electically conducive materials over many orders of magnitude of current. However, some materials do not obey Ohm's law; these are called non-ohmic. The law was named after the German physicist...
Post a Comment
Read more

Horticulture

 Horticulture is the art of cultivating plants in gardens to produce food and medicinal ingredients, or for comfort and ornamental purposes. Horticulturists are agriculturists who grow flowers, fruit and nuts, vegetables and herbs, as well as ornamental trees and lawns. The study and practice of horticulture have been traced back thousand of years. Horticulture contributed to the transition from nomadic human communities to sedentary, or semi-sedentary, horticultural communities. Horticulure is divided into several categories which focus on the cultivation and processing of different types of plants and food items for specific purposes. In order to conserve the science of horticulture, multiple organizations worldwide educate, encourage, and promote the advancement of horticulture. Some noble horticulturists include Luca Ghini and Luther Burbank. Horticulture involves plant propagation and cultivation to improve plant growth, yields, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to in...
Post a Comment
Read more