Lecture: What is Ecology? Updated: 9 January, 2009

World's smallest vultures Can you find the six species in this image? What are they doing? Can you describe their ecological relationships with each other? Click on the image, scroll to the bottom, set the resolution, then click on each image to advance to the next.

Topics

• Etymology of the term ecology -- oikos (Greek) --> oeco (Latin) --> eco + logy.
• Definition: "Study of the relations between living organisms and their environment."
• Ricklefs:
  • Ecology has a solid grounding in natural history.
  • An appreciation of the individual organism as the fundamental unit of ecology.
  • The central position of evolutionary thinking in the study of ecology.
• Biotic and Abiotic components
• Ecological systems form a hierarchy
  • Individual
  • Population
  • Community
  • Ecosystem
  • Landscape
  • Biome
  • Biosphere
• Communities through Landscapes
  • Species
• Ecosystems and above:
  • Biomass
  • Flow of energy and nutrients
• Ecology versus Environmentalism
• Goals in the first part of the course:
  • How to think logically, understand assumptions, and do science.
  • Be creative, work together, and share our understanding with the world.
  • Learn the fundamentals of ecology, focusing on the science behind understanding
    • climate change
    • biodiversity
    • units of selection -- "The Tragedy of the Commons"
    • population growth
    • invasive species
    • disease