I.

Introduction

Every organism that existed in this world does invariably depend upon the environment

and other organism for its existence. It either eats other organisms or is eaten by others and

competes with other for the necessities of life such as food, shelter and mate survival requires

group association.

Such concept of organisms and their environment in general constitute the sci-ence of

ecology. The word ecology was coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1869 and is derived from two Greek

words oikos meaning house or place of living and logos meaning study of.

Ecology deals with the study of organisms in their natural home interacting with their

surroundings. The surroundings or environment consists of living organisms (biotic) and

physical (abiotic) components.

Modern ecologists believe that an adequate definition of ecology must specify some

unit of study and one such basic unit described by Tansley (1935) was ecosystem. According to

other definition-an ecosystem is a self-regulating group of biotic communities of species

interacting with one another and with their non-living environment exchanging energy and

matter.

Now ecology is often defined as “the study of ecosystems”.

 II. Substance

The field of ecology deals with the influence of environmental factors on all the aspects

of life such as morphology, physiology, growth, distribution, behavior and survival of the

organisms. Ecology or environmental biology pertains to the study of relationship between

various organisms and their environment. This includes consideration of plants, animals and

human beings.

Energy transformations and biogeochemical cycling are the main processes that

comprise the field of ecosystem/ecology. We can study ecology at the level of the individual,

the population, the community, and the ecosystem.

Studies of individuals are concerned mostly about physiology, reproduction,

development or behaviour, and studies of populations usually focus on the habitat and

resource needs of individual species, their group behaviours, population growth, and what

limits their abundance or causes extinction.

Human ecology is a social science that studies the relationship between man and its

environment. It studies the relationship between human biological factors and the natural

environment.

Social ecology studies the relations among natural environment, population, technology

and society.

The physical and the biological world that we live in is our environment.
 The activities of various organisms in the environment which interact with each other

are so finely balanced that they are in equilibrium in a steady state. This is known as ecological

balance.

The principal causes for ecological degradation are drastic changes in the technology of

agricultural and industries production and transportation.

Four Laws of Ecology

Deep Ecology:

The word is perceived notes a collection of isolated objects but as a network of phenomena

that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent.

Shallow Ecology:

It views humans as above or outside of nature as the source of all values and prescribe only

instrumental or use value to nature.

Feminist Ecology and Echo Feminism:

It links the exploitation of nature with that of women and women’s history with the history of

the environment.

Industrial Ecology:

Industrial process resembles those of a natural eco system where in materials and energy

circulates continuously in a complex web of interaction. Micro-organisms turn animal waste in

to food for plants which are either eaten by animals or enter the cycle through death and

decay.

Subdivisions of Ecology

Autecology:

It is concerned with the ecology of an individual species and its population. While studying the

autecology of a particular species, an ecologist studies, its behaviour and adap-tation to the

environmental condition at every stage of that individual’s life cycle. Autecol-ogy is also called

species ecology.

Synecology

It is study of communities, their composition, their behaviour and relation to the envi-ronment.

Synecology is also called Ecology of Communities

Biotic Stability

A biotic community has the ability to quickly regain equilibrium after a disturbance in

population fluctuation. This is called biotic stability and is directly proportional to the number of

interacting species it contains i.e., the diversity in the community.

Before man encroached upon it, the world biosphere was a large climax community resulting

from thousands of years of evolution. With increase in population, the demand for space has

been steadily increasing and so the ecosystem have been rapidly exploited beyond the capacity

of the environment to adjust, thereby totally disrupting the balance of nature.

Before a point of no return is reached, man should stop manipulating the environment

to his advantage. The survival of mankind will be in peril of pollution of the environment,

degra-dation of the land, over consumption and wasteful use of natural resources are not

checked immediately. Development should be the result of scientific management based on

ecologi-cal principles.

Concern for environment protection was shown in the conference on Human

environment held at Stockholm in June, 1972. The prime objective of the conference was to

focus attention on the major environmental issues, to recognise and identify the causes for

environmental degradation and the need to prevent and control it.

The conference called upon all the nations of the world to protect, improve, preserve

and enhance the environment for the present and future generations.

In the United Nations conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro

held in June, 1992, an action plan was formulated for solving the major environmental

prob-lems threatening the environment, like,

(a) Global warming

(b) Ozone layer depletion

(c) Pollution of air, water and land

(d) Acid rain or acid precipitation

(e) Desertification

(f) Soil erosion

(g) Deforestation and

(h) Depletion of genetic resources

The pressing need today is environmentally compatible development to protect the

en-vironment for the future generation and to restore the ecological balance on earth.

In order to save the ecology for the future generation, we have to address these

matters.

Ecology is very important and urgent issue. This word means the relation of plants and

living creatures to each other and to their environment. Nowadays, this relation is damaged.

Our environment suffers from ecological problems, such as: air and water pollution, rainforest

destruction, extinction of plants and animals. If there is a problem, there must be a solution as

well.

To start, one of the biggest ecological problems is water pollution. Water is being

polluted by waste products from factories. Water pollution affects marine ecosystem, wildlife

health, and human well-being. The answer to solve this problem is to make changes in our
thinking, our daily habits and pay more attention to the types of products we consume. Picking

up litters and stop polluting the riverbanks is one of the examples.

Moreover, people can avoid plastics when it is possible. What is more, another problem

related to pollution is when pollutants are constantly being released into the atmosphere is

called air pollution. There are lots of things that each of us can do to stop being a part of the

problem and start becoming a part of the solution. The first good step is to take action in you

personal life to reduce your contribution to air pollution.

Secondly, one of the most important ways to help plants and animals which are facing

extinction to survive is to protect their habitats permanently in national parks, nature reserves

or wildlife areas.