Ecology: Its Relevance and Relationships

With Other Fields

ECOLOGY• Is a scientific discipline interrelated with a wide variety of fields of study• Its primary focus is on the individual’s relationship with the environment.

Where is ecology found in the spectrum of life?

•The biological spectrum contains the level of the organization of life:•Protoplasm •Cell•Tissue

•Organ•Organ system•Organism•Population •Community•Ecosystem•biosphere

Levels of organization that make up the outside of the organism:

•Population group of organism of the same kind.•Community group of populations living together in a given place.

•Ecosystem group of various species of plants, animals and microbes interacting with each other and with the environment.•Biosphere is the world of life.

Types of Ecosystem•Prairie or Grassland is an extensive tract of level or rolling land characterized by a deep soil with covering of tall coarse grasses. This is common in the Central States of America.

Types of Ecosystem•Desert is an uninhabited and incultivated tract of land. It is desolate, barren, waterless, and treeless region of the earth. It is typically found in the Middle East.

Types of Ecosystem•Forest is a large tract of land covered with trees and undergrowth, sometimes intermingled with pasture.

Types of Ecosystem•Tundra is located between the Arctic snow and ice and on the tree line lies the flat, marshly land. Only mosses and low plants grow.

Types of Ecosystem•Savannah is a place characterized by a very cold night and a very hot day. It is like an enormous meadow.

Biological spectrum1. Life begins with a

mass of protoplasm and operates within the biosphere. It follows continues pattern.

Biological spectrum

2. There is an increasing complexity from one level to another.

Biological spectrum

3. The levels of organization are interrelated with one another.

Biological spectrum4. The interrelationships of these different levels show that organisms are dependent on one another.

Historical aspects of ecology

1. Early man as hunter

2. The rise of agriculture

3. Ecology prior to the seventeenth century.