ECOLOGY (INTRODUCTION)

• Ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and the environment, has been

  a focus for human study for as long as we have existed as a species.
• Ecologist may study

  individual organisms in an entire forest or grassland, or even the whole earth.
• The ecology of

  the entire forest, grassland, or lakes for examples are treated as ecosystems.
• Broadly, the

  ecosystem consists of two basic interacting components-the living or biotic, and the

  nonliving (physical and chemical, or abiotic (Smith and Smith, 2012).
• The ecosystems of

  earth form the planetary ecosystem or biosphere.
• Organism which refers to individual organism in relation to other organisms.
• Populations refer to the group of organisms of the same species and how they interact with

  each other.
• Communities which refers to natural assemblages of populations of different species and

  their interactions.
• Ecosystems which refers to the entire natural system composed of communities and their

  physical environment.