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"The scientific study of the interactions between organisms and their environments is called ecology.“ "The trouble with ecology is that you never know where to start because everything affects everything else." Robert A. Heinlein (from Farmer in the Sky ). Ecology.
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"The scientific study of the interactions between organisms and their environments is called ecology.“ • "The trouble with ecology is that you never know where to start because everything affects everything else." Robert A. Heinlein (from Farmer in the Sky) Ecology
"As an area of scientific study, ecology incorporates the hypothetico-deductive approach, using observations and experiments to test hypothetical explanations of ecological phenomena. . . . ecologists often face extraordinary challenges in their research because of the complexity of their questions, the diversity of their subjects, and the large expanses of time and space over which studies must often be conducted. Ecology is also challenging because of its multidisciplinary nature; ecological questions form a continuum with those from other areas of biology, including genetics, evolution, physiology, and behavior, as well as those from other sciences, such as chemistry, physics, geology, and meteorology." (p. 1061, Campbell, 1996) Ecology
"Ecology concerns itself with the interrelationships of living organisms, plant or animal, and their environments; these are studied with a view to discovering the principles which govern the relationships. That such principles exist is a basic assumption—and an act of faith—of the ecologist. His field of inquiry is no less wide than the totality of the living conditions of plants and animals under observation, their systematic position, their reactions to the environment and to each other, and the physical and chemical nature of their inanimate surroundings . . . It must be admitted that the ecologist is something of a chartered libertine. He roams at will over the legitimate preserves of the plant and animal biologist, the taxonomist, the physiologist, [the microbiologist,] the behaviorist, the meteorologist, the geologist, the physicist, the chemist and even the sociologist; he poaches from all these and from other established and respected disciplines. It is indeed a major problem for the ecologist, in his own interest, to set bounds to his divagations [wanderings/digressions]." (p. 5, Kormondy, 1996 quoting Macfadyen, 1957) Ecology
Ecology • Ecology is a pain in the butt (S.T.A., circa: this past weekend) •
Chemical (abiotic) aspects of environment: nutrients (both organic and inorganic), substrate (what the organism lives in/on), poisons, etc. • Physical (abiotic) aspects of environment: temperature, light, chemical gradients, currents (e.g., wind or water), degree of moisture, etc. • Biotic component of environment • Evolution real time • Principle of Allocation: "Each organism has a limited amount of energy that can be allocated for obtaining nutrients, escaping from predators, coping with environmental fluctuations, growth and reproduction." Environment, etc.
Organisms can respond to variations in the environment with a variety of adaptations • Behavioral adaptations are almost instantaneous in their effects and easily reversed • Physiological adaptations may be implemented and changed over time scales ranging from seconds to weeks • Morphological adaptations may develop over the lifetimes of individual organisms or between generations • Adaptive genetic changes in populations are slower still, usually evolving over several generations Adaptation to Environment
Organismal Ecology: From an ecological vantage, much of what we study in introductory biology falls under the heading of organismal ecology, i.e., the adaptations individual organisms possess and the impact those adaptations have on the ability of organisms to survive and reproduce • Behavioral Ecology: Essentially a subset of Organismal Ecology that deals specifically with Behavior • Population Ecology: The study of the size and composition of populations of organisms (one species) • Community Ecology: The study of the interaction between different species of organisms • Ecosytem Ecology: The study of biotic and abioitic assemblages, e.g., nutrient cycling through ecosytems • Landscape Ecology: Ecology across assemblages of adjacent ecosystems, e.g., pond, marsh, and forest Areas of Ecological Study
Principle of Allocation: "Each organism has a limited amount of energy that can be allocated for obtaining nutrients, escaping from predators, coping with environmental fluctuations, growth and reproduction.“ • Conformers: Organisms whose internal environment conforms physically or chemical to its external environment • Regulators: Organisms whose internal environment doesnot conform to its extertanal environment (due to energetically costsly regulatory mechanisms) • Why regulate? Why Conform? Principle of Allocation
Beavers, Camels, Nephrons Less energy/anatomy devoted, e.g., to water retention, the more that can be devoted to REPRODUCTION
Acknowledgements Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings
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