Portal:Ecology

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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 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...)

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Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources. Historically, bioplastics made from natural materials like shellac or cellulose had been the first plastics. Since the end of the 19th century they have been increasingly superseded by fossil-fuel plastics derived from petroleum or natural gas (fossilized biomass is not considered to be renewable in reasonable short time). Today, in the context of bioeconomy and circular economy, bioplastics are gaining interest again. Conventional petro-based polymers are increasingly blended with bioplastics to manufacture "bio-attributed" or "mass-balanced" plastic products - so the difference between bio- and other plastics might be difficult to define.

Bioplastics can be produced by: (Full article...)

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Mimicry

Credit: PLoS, Image Credit: (A, C, E, and F) by Rob Knell; (B and D) by Tom Ings

Wasp mimicry - A and B show real wasps; the rest are mimics: three hoverflies and one beetle. Mimicry is part of the evolutionary process of adaptation.

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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 2Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 3Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 4The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 5Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 6Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 7Table visualising size-symmetric competition, using fish as consumers and crabs as resources. (from Community (ecology))
Image 8An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 9The 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 10Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 11a) A trophic pyramid showing the different trophic levels in a community. b) A food web of the same community (from Community (ecology))
Image 12Global 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 13Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 14Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 15Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 16A red-chested cuckoo chick being feed by a significantly smaller Cape robin-chat adult (from Community (ecology))
Image 17A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology. (from Community (ecology))
Image 18Few 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 19Loch 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 20
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 21A generalised graph of a predator-prey population density cycle (from Community (ecology))
Image 22Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (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 24This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 25Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)

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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 phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with artificial selection, which is intentional, whereas natural selection is not.

Variation of traits, both genotypic and phenotypic, exists within all populations of organisms. However, some traits are more likely to facilitate survival and reproductive success. Thus, these traits are passed onto the next generation. These traits can also become more common within a population if the environment that favours these traits remains fixed. If new traits become more favored due to changes in a specific niche, microevolution occurs. If new traits become more favored due to changes in the broader environment, macroevolution occurs. Sometimes, new species can arise especially if these new traits are radically different from the traits possessed by their predecessors. (Full article...)

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Hanna Kokko (born 1971) is a scientist and full professor at the University of Zurich. She works in the fields of evolution and ecology and is known for her research on the evolution and maintenance of sex, the feedback between ecology and evolution, and the evolutionary ecology of cancer. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that gynaecologist Oon Chiew Seng, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2013, was the founding chairperson of the first dementia home in Singapore?
... 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 Luxembourgian myrmecologist Robert Stumper also played as a goalkeeper for his nation's football team?
... 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 ancient Roman gynecologists believed that menstrual blood could be used to drive dogs insane?
... that scientist Adelaida K. Semesi was known as "mama mangroves" due to her specialist knowledge of their ecology?

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“

A diverse ecosystem will also be resilient, because it contains many species with overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another. When a particular species is destroyed by a severe disturbance so that a link in the network is broken, a diverse community will be able to survive and reorganize itself... In other words, the more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.

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— Fritjof Capra

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