Ecology

Ecology is the study of the science which studies the distribution and abundance of living organisms, interactions between them, and the interactions between organisms and their environment.

Scope

Ecology is a multi-scale science; ecologists have been hard-pressed to come up with a single definition which encompasses the entire field of ecology. Given this difficulty, it may be more useful to consider the subdisciplines which make up ecology. Major subdisciples are based on varying levels of complexity. Ecophysiology and behavior ecology study interactions between organisms and their environment. Population ecology (or autecology) focuses on populations of individual species. Community ecology (or synecology) looks at the interactions between different species within a defined area (an ecological community). Ecosystem ecology studies the flow of matter and energy through defined areas known as ecosystems.

There are other important divisions within the field of ecology. One of the oldest splits is between plant ecology and animal ecology. Other important splits include questions of scale, or the dichotomy between holism and reductionism and the debate between "top down" and "bottom up" control in ecological communities.