Ecology of animals: bases, types, problems

Animal ecology is a scientific study of the relationship between animals, plants and other organisms, as well as their surrounding environment. The main topics are behavior, eating habits, migration patterns, living conditions and interspecific relationships. Environmentalists are trying to understand why some species are able to live relatively peacefully with each other in the same environment.

Ecology can also focus on the activities of human behavior. Intentional and unintentional actions of people can have useful or harmful effects on the environment. The main topics include hazardous waste, species destruction, land use change and pollution.

Fundamentals of animal ecology: ecosystems

Ecosystems are the main component of a general study of ecology, which involves the interaction of animals, plants and micro-organisms with their specific physical habitat. They, as a rule, are divided into three categories: water, land and water-marsh. Examples of ecosystems include desert, forest, prairie, tundra, coral reef, steppe and rainforest, there are also urban ecosystems that are largely inhabited by humans. Their study is important for understanding how the ecology of the animal world as a whole works.

What is ecology?

Ecology is the study of the relationship between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. This science seeks to understand the vital links between plants and animals and the world around them. The ecology of plants and animals also contains information on the benefits of ecosystems and how we can use the resources of the Earth in order to keep the environment healthy for future generations.
Relations between organisms and habitats are studied on a wide variety of scales: from studying microscopic bacteria growing in an aquarium to complex interactions between thousands of plants, animals and other communities. Environmentalists also explore many types of environments: from microbes living in the soil, to animals and plants in the rainforest or in the ocean.

The role of ecology in our life

Many specialties in the field of ecology, such as marine, plant and statistical ecology, provide us with information for a better understanding of the world around us. This information can also help us improve our environment, manage our natural resources and protect people's health. The following examples illustrate only some of the ways in which environmental knowledge has had a positive impact on our lives.

Ecology, or environmental science, is a branch of biology that studies the interrelationships of plants and animals with their physical and biological environment. The physical environment includes light and heat, solar radiation, moisture, wind, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients in the soil, water and atmosphere. The biological environment includes organisms of the same species, as well as plants and animals of other species.

One of the newest sciences with a long story

The ecology of animals is one of the newest sciences, the increased attention to which was riveted in the second half of the 20th century, although research on populations and their habitats was undertaken long before. Thus, the disciple of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, Theophrastus, described the interrelationship between the animals themselves and that which surrounds them as far back as the fourth century BC. E.

This area began to develop with the publication in 1850 by Charles Darwin of his "Origin of Species" and the works of his contemporary and rival Alfred Russell Wallace. The latter recognized the interdependence of animal and plant species and grouping them into living communities, or biocenoses. In 1875, the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess proposed the term biosphere to cover the various conditions that contribute to the existence of life on Earth.

The basic principle of ecology

The main principle of ecology is that every living organism has a constant and regular connection with any other element that makes up its environment. Ecosystem can be defined as a situation when there is interaction between organisms and their environment. Within its limits, food chains and food webs are linked. Energy from the sun, captured by primary producers (plants) through photosynthesis, moves up the chain of primary consumers (herbivores), and then secondary and tertiary consumers (carnivores, or predators). The process also includes decomposers (fungi and bacteria) that decompose nutrients and return them back to the ecosystem.

Ecological problems

An environmental crisis can occur if the environment changes in a way that becomes unfavorable to survival. The problems of animal ecology may be related to climate change (increase in temperature or decrease in precipitation), the human factor (oil spills), increased activity of predators, a decrease in the number or, conversely, the rapid growth of the population and, as a result, the inability to maintain their ecosystem. Over the past few centuries, human actions have seriously affected the environment. Due to forests, new agricultural areas appear, the construction of buildings and roads also contributes to the pollution of ecosystems.

Sections of ecology

There are the following types of animal ecology:

• Physiological (behavioral), studying the processes of adaptation of the individual to the environment.
• Population, which studies the dynamics of populations of one species or group of species (for example, an animal, plant or ecology of insects).
• Ecology of communities focuses on interactions between species within the biocenosis.
• Ecosystem Ecology, which studies energy and matter flows through ecosystem components.

As for the ecology in general, they also highlight a landscape that considers the processes and relationships of several ecosystems or very large geographical areas (for example, arctic, polar, marine, etc.), and human ecology.

Influence on animals

Ecology (from the Greek oikos - house and logos - knowledge) is a scientific study of how living beings interact with each other and with their natural environment. She considers complex and varied relations from different points of view. The studied physiological processes are the regulation of temperature, nutrition and metabolism. Factors affecting animals can include diseases, climate change and toxic effects.

Ecology is a scientific study of the distribution, abundance and relationships of organisms and their interaction with the environment. Everything is studied: from the role of tiny bacteria in the recycling of nutrients to the impact of tropical rain forests on the Earth's atmosphere. The ecology of animals is closely connected with physiology, evolution, genetics.

Every year hundreds of species disappear in the world, it is difficult to imagine how large the problem may be for humanity. The world of fauna is unique, and animals are an important part of the environment, as they regulate the number of plants, promote pollen, fruits, seeds, are an integral part of the food chain, play an important role in the formation of soil forming landscapes.

Conceptual understanding of ecology

Like many natural sciences, the conceptual understanding of ecology affects broader details of the study, including:

• Life processes explaining the adaptation.
• Distribution and abundance of organisms.
• Movement of substances and energy through living communities.
• Consistent development of ecosystems.
• Abundance and distribution of biodiversity in the context of the environment.

Ecology is different from the natural history, which mainly relates to the descriptive study of organisms. This is a subdiscipline of biology, which is the study of life.

Animal protection

Animal ecology is an interdisciplinary science that was formed at the junction of zoology, ecology and geography. She studies the life of different species of fauna depending on the environment. Since animals are part of ecosystems, they are of great importance for sustaining life on our planet. They spread to all corners of the earth: they live in forests and deserts, in the steppe and in water, in arctic latitudes, fly in the air and hide under the earth.

An important issue in the environment is the protection of animals. Many factors lead to a change in the diversity of species at various scales. For example, some predators can be harmful to individual species, their presence can actually reduce or increase the number of species present in the community. Conservation biology aims to understand what factors predispose species to extinction and what people can do to prevent extinction.

Human interference

Environmental problems, which affect not only humans, but also animals, include air and water pollution, dirty soil, acid rain. Deforestation, drainage of swamps, changes in riverbeds result in the threat of entire ecosystems. Living organisms have to quickly adapt to changing conditions, change their habitat, and not everyone can cope with this successfully. As a result - reduction or complete extinction of populations. Animals are heavily dependent on the condition and environmental factors. The destructive interference of man in nature can destroy many species and forms of the animal world without the possibility of their restoration.