Page 3 - Environmental_Ecology

3

Introduction to the topic

The term “ecology” was introduced by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866 and is a word of Greek
origin. It derives from “oikos”, that is home, an environment in which to live. In a somewhat elaborate way,
according to the nineteenth-century custom, Haeckel defined ecology as:

“The study of the economics of nature and the relations of animals with the inorganic and organic
environment, especially the favourable and unfavourable relations, direct or indirect, with plants and other
animals; in short, ecology is the study of all those complex interrelationships to which Darwin refers when
he speaks of the conditions of the struggle for existence”.

Although Charles Darwin is above all famous for having understood and explained the mechanism of
natural selection, which is fundamental for understanding the evolution of species, it is to him that we owe
many of the ideas behind modern ecology, for example the idea that competition between species (the
struggle for existence) is one of the fundamental phenomena that structure nature as we see it.

Coming to more recent definitions, in 1961 Andrewartha, one of the great modern ecologists, stated that
ecology is “the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of organisms”, while another great
ecologist, Slobodkin, suggested that “ecology, in general terms, deals with the interaction between
organisms and their environment in the widest possible sense”. Compared to Andrewartha’s definition,
Slobodkin’s definition has the merit of highlighting the importance of the concept of interaction. Modern
ecology is not content to describe where organisms are on earth and in what number, but wants to explain
the causes of their distribution in space and time. Therefore the definition that is perhaps best suited to
what the international scientific community currently understands by ecology is that of Krebs (1972):
“Ecology is the scientific study of the interactions that determine the distribution and abundance of
organisms.

This science is part of biology, dealing with living systems at the highest level of integration. An important
focus for ecologists is to improve the understanding of how biodiversity affects ecological function.
Ecologists work to explain:

● Life processes, interactions, and adaptations
● The movement of materials and energy through living communities
● The successional development of ecosystems
● The abundance and distribution of organisms and biodiversity in the context of the environment.

However, as it has to study the interactions of organisms also with the environment, ecology must be
brought closer today to the recent mass interest in environmental problems and therefore also in ecological
problems, and European policies on ecology are part of general environmental policy.