Ecology as a multi-disciplinary science

Ecology is usually considered a branch of biology, the general science that studies living organisms. Organisms can be studied at many different levels, from proteins and nucleic acids (in biochemistry and molecular biology), to cells (in cellular biology), to individuals (in botany, zoology, and other similar disciplines), and finally at the level of populations, communities, and ecosystems, to the biosphere as a whole; these latter strata are the primary subjects of ecological inquiries.

Ecology is a multi-disciplinary science. Because of its focus on the higher levels of the organization of life on earth and on the interrelations between organisms and their environment, ecology draws heavily on many other branches of science, especially geology and geography, meteorology, pedology, chemistry, and physics. Thus, ecology is considered by some to be a holistic science, one that over-arches older disciplines such as biology which in this view become sub-disciplines contributing to ecological knowledge.

Ecology is a broad discipline comprised of many sub-disciplines. A common, broad classification, moving from lowest to highest complexity, where complexity is defined as the number of entities and processes in the system under study, is:

Physiological Ecology (or ecophysiology) and Behavioral ecology ex­amine adaptations of the individual to its environment.

Population ecology (or autecology) studies the dynamics of populations of a single species.

Community ecology (or synecology) focuses on the interactions between species within an ecological community.

Ecosystem ecology studies the flows of energy and matter through the biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems.

Landscape ecology examines processes and relationship across multiple ecosystems or very large geographic areas.

Ecology can also be subdivided according to the species of interest into fields such as animal ecology, plant ecology, insect ecology, and so on.

Environmental science is an interdisciplinary study of connections between the earth's life-support system and human activities (table 1).

Major Fields of Study Related to Environmental Science

Table 1

As a scientific discipline, ecology does not dictate what is «right» or «wrong». However, ecological knowledge such as the quantification of biodiversity and population dynamics has provided a scientific basis for expressing the aims of environmentalism and evaluating its goals and policies.