Ecology (from Greek Greek an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of: οἶκος, oikos, "house, household, housekeeping, or living relations" ; -λογία, -logia, "study of") is the interdisciplinary scientific Science refers in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique or practice study of life processes explaining adaptations Adaptation is one of the basic phenomena of biology. It is the process whereby an organism becomes better suited to its habitat. Also, the term adaptation may refer to a characteristic which is especially important for an organism's survival. For example, the adaptation of horses' teeth to the grinding of grass, or their ability to run fast and, external relations and interaction among organisms, the flux of materials and energy through living communities, the successional development of ecosystems, and the abundance Abundance is an ecological concept referring to the relative representation of a species in a particular ecosystem. It is usually measured as the large number of individuals found per sample. How species abundances are distributed within an ecosystem is referred to as relative species abundances and distribution of biodiversity Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth today consists of many millions of distinct biological species, which is the product of nearly 3.5 billion years of evolution in context of the environment The biophysical environment is the symbiosis between the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables that comprise the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories: the natural environment and the built environment, with some overlap between the two.[1][2][3] Ecologists are scientists A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person who engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy. In a more restricted sense, scientist refers to individuals who use the scientific method. The person may be an expert that study ecosystems An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all of the physical (abiotic) factors of the environment. Ecosystems can be permanent or temporary. An ecosystem is a unit of interdependent organisms which share the same habitat. Ecosystems usually form a number of food webs. Ecosystems are real places (a pond, field, forest, etc.) or they can be conceptually abstract schemes showing the direction and size of quantified amounts of resources flowing through the system or network of relations. [4][5]
Ecology is distinct from natural history Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research that is published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, Natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or because there are emergent phenomena operating at different environmental scales of study, ranging from molecular to galactic spheres of influence.[6][7] An understanding of these phenomena require a conceptual distinction between ecology and the environment. While the environment of an organism may include everything in the universe external to the organism, there are levels that are more evidently of direct importance, which is the effective environment.[1] Ecology is often misused as a synonym for environment, but it is one of the few academic disciplines dedicated to holism Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave.[6] In contrast, the environment describes all factors and scales of study that are external to the organism, including abiotic In biology, abiotic components are non-living chemical and physical factors in the environment. Despite being non-living, abiotic components can impact evolution. Things that were once living but now dead are usually considered biotic . However, depending upon the definition, components from living things that are no longer living can be factors such as temperature, radiation, light, chemistry, climate Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time. Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these same elements over periods up to two weeks and geology, and biotic factors, including genes, cells, organisms, members of the same species (conspecifics) and other species that share a habitat.[8]
Ecosystems are most commonly studied at the local or effective community scale, such as measurements of primary production in a wetland (e.g. Brinson, Lugo, & Brown, 1981) or the analysis of predator-prey dynamics affecting amphibian biomass (e.g. Davic and Welsh, 2002). Ecological relations also regulate the flux of energy, nutrients, and climate all the way up to the planetary scale. The global sum of ecosystems is known as the biosphere The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth. From the broadest biophysiological point of view, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere where ecological theory has been used to explain self emergent regulatory phenomena at the planetary scale. This is known as the Gaia hypothesis The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth are closely integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis. Originally proposed by James Lovelock as the earth feedback hypothesis, it[7]. The Gaia hypothesis is an example of holism in ecology because it tests for principals relating to an evolving and self regulating planetary ecosystem that requires different explanations than those governing ecosystems at a smaller scale, such as a single wetland.
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The Ecology is a mutual building society dedicated to improving the environment by promoting sustainable housing and sustainable communities Savings placed with the Ecology
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Aanensen DM, Huntley DM, Feil EJ, al-Own F, Spratt BG, 2009 EpiCollect: Linking Smartphones to Web Applications for Epidemiology, . Ecology. and Community Data Collection. PLoS ONE 4(9): e6968. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006968. Abstract ...
