Introduction to ecology

Ecology

The scientific study of interactions between organisms, each other and their environment

Abiotic

Non living parts of an environment (soil, rocks, water, temp, sun, precipitation)

Biotic

Living things in environment (plants, animals, fungus, diseases, predators, herbivores)

Energy

In the environment what is the currency of the economy?

Hierarchy

Arrangement of things into a graded series; successive levels include lower levels as components

Organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, biosphere

What is the order of ecological hierarchy

Organisms (physiological ecology)

Responses and adaptations of the individual organism (form, physiology, behavior) to the physical environment (temp, light, water, nutrients)

Population ecology

Focused on populations, and the factors affecting their distribution and abundance (births, deaths, immigration/ emigration) and their evolution

Community ecology

Groups of more than one species, how these groups are structured, interactions, amongst species, and biodiversity

Ecosystem ecology

Transformations and movements of energy, biomass, nutrients, and/or water within and through ecosystems

Landscape ecology

The study of landscapes; specifically, the composition, structure and function of landscapes, which are specially heterogeneous geographic areas characterized by diverse interacting patches or ecosystems

Biogeography

The study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time

Treatment

A factor we want to manipulate in an experiment

Control

Reproduce everything but the treatment or Variable of interest

Replication

Each treatment is repeated several times in order to account for natural variability

Randomization

Used to limit potential bias and capture range of variation within the treatment