Basic

Terminologies in
Ecology
WMSU Prepared by:
S.R. Ibrahim-Jalilula
 Ecology Organism
• The study of interactions • A form of life composed of
that take place between mutually interdependent
organisms and their parts that maintain various
environment. vital processes.
 Food chain Food web
• The chain of organisms • A set of interconnected food
existing in any natural chains by which energy and
community, through which materials circulate within an
food energy is transferred ecosystem.
 Producer
• an organism that makes its
own food through
photosynthesis (plants) or
chemosynthesis (certain
microorganism).

Consumer
• an organism that consumes
other organisms, whether
living or dead.
 Herbivores
• Animals whose primary
food source is plant-based. 

Carnivores
• Animals that eat other animals.
 Omnivores Decomposers
• Animals that eat both plant- • They are all living things that
and animal-derived food. get energy by eating dead
animals and plants and
breaking down wastes of other
animals.
Nutrients
Habitat
• A materials that organism
needs and reproduce. • The area in which an organism
lives, including the space, water
and food available, vegetation
and soil types
 Biodiversity
• A wide variety of living things.

Ecosystem
• The system of interactions
between living things and their
environments
 Introduction to Ecology and Forest Ecology

Scope and Importance

of Ecology

WMSU Prepared by:

For. Sitti Rasma Ibrahim-Jalilula
SCOPE OF ECOLOGY
• The scope of the ecology increased up to great extent due to rapidly
increase awareness of man regarding the in balance in ecosystem.
• It is considered as the ENVIRONMENT AWARENESS MOVEMENT
which has become the branch of biology.
• It has become the part of molecular biology, genetic, Development
Biology and Evolution.
• In ecology the population and community of the given area are
includes.
• The ecology has grown from branch of biology to a major inter-
disciplinary science that inter-relates the biological, physical and
social sciences.
• The living environment condition and community interact
together as an ecological system.
• The need and urgency for conserving the natural resources i.e.
Land, Water, Vegetation and minerals has always been felt.
• Increase in population is causing a rapid increase in population
of three types: Air, Water and Environment.
• The applied ecology is based on natural sciences and social
science alike ecological principles are being introduced in
economics, law, sociology, politics and other fields of humanities.
• The education of applied ecology is essential for the betterment
of mankind.
• The following fields are being benefited by applied ecology:
 Agriculture
 Forestry
 Watershed management
 Range management
 Wildlife management
 Soil conservation
 Water conservation
 Aqua culture
 Apiculture
 Sericulture
 Lac culture
 Non timber forest products e.g.
 Medicinal plants
 Mushrooms
 Resins, Gums
 Fruits and nuts
 Barks, tannins
 Seed
IMPORTANCE OF ECOLOGY
The following reasons explain the importance of ecology:
• Conservation of Environment
– Ecology helps us to understand how our actions affect the
environment. It shows the individuals the extent of damage we
cause to the environment.
• Resource Allocation
- With the knowledge of ecology, we are able to know which
resources are necessary for the survival of different organisms.
• Energy Conservation
- All organisms require energy for their growth and
development. Lack of ecological understanding leads to
the over-exploitation of energy resources such as light,
nutrition and radiation, leading to its depletion.
• Eco-Friendliness
- Ecology encourages harmonious living within the
species and the adoption of a lifestyle that protects the
ecology of life.
The Importance of the Forest Ecosystem
• Types of Forests
- Forests thrive in diverse climatic regions throughout the world,
and can be categorized by their locations and elevations.
• Climate
- Forests are major contributors to the Earth's ability to maintain
its climate, by the global impact of their photosynthesis.
• Ecology
- They prevent erosion by reducing the rainfall's force on the
soil's surface and by absorbing water and not allowing it to
directly run off and remove topsoil.
• Biodiversity
- Forests contain a greater range of biodiversity than any
other ecosystems on earth. Only a fraction of the species
found in forests have been examined and studied.
• Commercial Importance
- Many medicines and pharmaceuticals have been
discovered in plants native to forests. Local communities
survive on plants and animals culled from the forests.
 History of
Ecology

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Prepared by:
S.R. Ibrahim-Jalilula
 Ecology is the study of earth's living systems and how they
interact.
 It is not environmentalism, a social and political movement.
 Ecology is one of the most complex sciences and is very new.
 As such we are only at the beginning of our understanding of
how environmental systems react and how a change in one
element might affect a whole system or one organisms in that
system.
• The term ecology was first used by German zoologist Ernst
Haeckel (1869), however, this science has its origins in other
sciences such as biology, geology and evolution among others
• Lamarck with his theory of evolution, proposed that the
environment is in constant transformation
• English geologist Charles Lyell found that the Earth’s crust is the
result of gradual changes throughout the history of the planet.
• Theory of Darwinian evolution noted that the environment is
constantly changing which causes the agencies with best
adaptations are those who survive by the mechanism of natural
selection
• English ecologist Charles Elton defined ecology as the “scientific natural
history” which deals with the “sociology and economy of animals”.
• Plant ecologist, Frederick Clements, considered that ecology was “the
science of the community”
• Contemporary American ecologist Eugene Odum defined, perhaps too
widely, as ‘the study of the structure and function of nature’.
• In the Decade of the 40’s, Tansley (1935) proposed the concept of
“ecosystem”.
• Lindeman (1941), conceived ecosystem as an exchanges of energy, in
response to the need for concepts that link various agencies to their physical
environments.
• In the texts of ecology of the 1950s and still later, designating ecosystem as
the sum of the various communities (or biocoenosis) and biotope (inert
atmosphere).
Timeline of ecology as a science:
• late 1700's Antoine Lavoisier, a chemist, discovered Oxygen
and Carbon and their importance to living things
• 1852 Robert Angus Smith connected acid rain to air pollution
• 1869 Ernst Haeckel coins the term ecology
• 1875- Eduard Seuss defines the biosphere
• 1879 – Bary - Symbiosis is first described
• late 1800's animal camouflage studied and described
• 1900 Henry Chandler Cowles studies ecological succession
• 1915 Ecological Society of America founded
• 1927 Charles Elton makes the concept of food chains and webs part of
ecology
• 1933 Aldo Leopold writes Game Management, beginning the
discipline of wildlife management
• 1935 The Dust Bowl crisis re-focuses ecology on practical land usage
practices
• 1935 Arthur Tinsley defines ecosystem
• 1940's Ruth Patrick studied interdependence of organisms,
particularly freshwater ecosystems. She developed methods to
measure the health of a stream.
• 1950's People first become aware of the harmful effects of pollution
on ecological systems and on people.
• 1951 Nature Conservancy is founded.
• 1953 Eugene Odum, Howard Odum wrote the first ecology textbook
and ecology becomes a university course
• 1970’s James Lovelock’s idea of Gaia, that the whole earth is
one living entity and will ensure its own survival even if
humans destroy themselves
• 1972 Acid rain effects on lakes is discovered and studied by
Harold Harvey
• 1978 Conservation Biology established as a discipline focusing
on environmental management
• 1980’s Scientists discover hole in the ozone over Antarctica
• 1980’s Water pollution seriously reduced due to new sewage
treatment practices
• 1980's Air pollution reduced in cities as unleaded gas and
catalytic converters are used in autos
 BIOLOGICAL
SPECTRUM

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S.R. Ibrahim-Jalilula
• From the point of view of interdependence, interrelations and survival
we could see that there is no sharp break anywhere along the line.
• It is important to consider that there is no one level is any more or less
deserving than any after level.
System - is a regularly interacting and interdependent component
forming a unified system that goes far beyond that biology alone, it
considers all the factors that make life possible on our planet whole.
Matter - is anything that occupies space and has weight and mass.
Energy - is the capacity to do work.
Biological System (biosystem) - is system containing living
components.
Biological spectrum is composed of different levels of organization from the
cell with its genes, to tissues, organs, and to organism
• Gene is the basic unit of inheritance.
• Cell is the smallest living unit that may live independently or may be part of
a multicellular organism.
• Organ is composed of one or more types of tissues interacting as a
structural, functional unit.
• Organism is a complete living organism. (Species)
• Population is a group of individuals of the same king occupying a given
area.
• Community is the populations of all species that occupy a habitat.
• Ecosystem is the most complex level of organization in nature. It is made
up of communities and their abiotic (non-living or physical) environment.
 Division and
Branches of
Ecology
WMSU Prepared by:
S.R. Ibrahim-Jalilula
 SUBDIVISION OF ECCOLOGY
Ecology is principally divided into five divisions:
• Autecology – a branch of ecology which deals with the interrelations of individual’s
organisms and their environment.
• Synecology - a branch of ecology which deals with the interrelations of two or more
organisms and their environments.
a. Population ecology
b. Community ecology
c. Ecosystem ecology
• Genecology - a branch of ecology which deals with the genetic variations of organisms
in relation to environment.
• Ecosystem analysis - a branch of ecology which deals with functional dynamics of the
ecosystems.
• Paleoecology - a branch of ecology which deals with how to reconstruct past vegetation
and climate from fossils evidence.
 Specialized Branches of Ecology
A. Habitat ecology - It deals with ecological study of different habitats on planet
earth and their effects on the organisms living there.
According to the kind of habitat, marine ecology (oceanography) “estuarine
ecology”fresh water ecology (limnology), and Terrestrial ecology
a. forest ecology
b. cropland ecology
c. grassland ecology
d. desert ecology

B. Community ecology:
• It deals with the study of the local distribution of animals in various habitats, the
recognition and composition of community units, and succession.
C. Population ecology (Demecology):
• It deals with the study of the manner of growth, structure and regulation
of population of organisms.
D. Evolutionary ecology:
• It deals with the problems of niche segregation and speciation.
E. Taxonomic ecology:
• It is concerned with the ecology of different taxonomic groups of living
organisms and eventually includes following divisions of ecology:
a. microbial ecology e. parasitological
b. mammalian ecology f. human ecology
c. avian ecology
d. insect ecology
F. Human ecology:
• It involves population ecology or man and man’s relation to the environment,
especially man’s effects on the biosphere and the implication of these effects for
man.
G. Applied ecology:
• It deals with the application of ecological concepts to human needs and thus, it
includes following applications of ecology:
a. wild-life management h. aquaculture
b. range management i. agriculture
c. Forestry j. horticulture
d. Conservation k. land use and,
e. insect control l. population ecology
f. epidemiology
g. animal husbandry
H. Ecosystem dynamics:
• It deals with the ecological study of the processes of soil formation, nutrient cycling
energy flow, and productivity.
I. Production ecology:
• It deals with the gross and net production of different ecosystems like fresh water, sea
water, agriculture, horticulture, etc., and tries to do proper management of these
ecosystems so that maximum yield can be get from them.
J. Ecological energetic:
• It deals with energy conservation and its flow in the organisms within the ecosystem. In
it thermodynamics has its significant contribution.
K. Physiological ecology (ecophysiology):
• The factors of environment have a direct bearing on the functional aspects of
organisms.
• The ecophysiology deals with the survival of populations as a result of functional
adjustments of organisms with different ecological conditions.
L. Chemical ecology:
• It concerns with the adaptations of animals of preferences of particular
organisms like insects to particular chemical substances.
M. Ecological genetics (genecology):
• An ecologist recognized kind of genetic spasticity in the case of every
organism. In any environment only those organisms that are favored by the
environment can survive.
• Thus, genecology deals with the study of variations of species based upon
their genetic potentialities.
N. Paleoecology:
• It is the study of environmental conditions, and life of the past ages, to which
palynology, paleontology, and radioactive dating methods have made
significant contribution.
O. Geographic ecology (ecogeography):
• It concentrates on the study of geographical distribution of animals
(zoogeography) and plants (phytogeography), and also of paleoecology
and biomes.
P. Space ecology:
• It is a modern subdivision of ecology which is concerned with the
development of partially or completely regenerating ecosystems for
supporting life of man during long space flights or during extended
exploration of extra-terrestrial environments.
Q. Pedology:
• It is a branch of terrestrial ecology and it deals with the study of soils, in
particular their acidity, alkalinity, humus contents, mineral contents, soil-
types, etc., and their influence on the organisms.
R. Radiation ecology:
• It deals with the study of gross effects of radiations and radioactive substances
over the environment and living organisms.
S. Ethology:
• It is the interpretation of animal behavior under natural conditions. In it, often,
detailed life history studies of particular species are amassed.
T. Sociology:
• It is the study of ecology and ethology of mankind.
U. Systems ecology:
• It is the modern branch of ecology which is particularly concerned with the
analysis and understanding of the function and structure of ecosystem by the
use of applied mathematics, such as advanced statistical techniques,
mathematical models, characteristics of computer sciences.
 Biotic and abiotic
relationship
WMSU
Abiotic components
• Abiotic components are basically represented by all non-living
entities
– temperature – is important in controlling the rate of processes inside an
organisms.
a. Poikilotherms - the body temperature of Poikilotherms usually tends to
match with the environmental temperature (cold-blooded organisms).
b. Homeotherms - the body temperature of Homeotherms tends stay constant
even when the environment temperature changes (warm-blooded
organisms).
c. Heterotherms – those organisms that managed to combine some of the
advantages of homeotherm and poikilotherm.
– Moisture – refers to the amount of water in the soil or n the air expressed
usually in percentage.
Humidity – define as the moisture in the air in the form of vapor.
a. Absolute humidity – the actual mass of water in a certain volume of air.
b. Relative humidity – the actual absolute humidity expressed as a percentage
of what the absolute humidity would be if the air were saturated with water
vapor at the same temperature and pressure.
 Plants may be classified according to their relationship on water:
a. Xerophyte – plants grow in dry places (xeric); categorized into,
a.1. true xerophyte – consist of perennial shrubs with small and hard leaves and
resistant to drought
a.2. succulent plants – plants with fleshy and watery tissues
a.3. desert ephemeral plants – consist of annual plants growing similar with
moisture regions.
a.4. phreatophytes – plants growing in the desert wherein their wiry roots
reached the water table.
b. Mesophytes – plants grow in moist place (mesica)
c. Hydrophytes – plants that grow in wet or watery places
d. Halophytes - plants grow in brackish or salty area.
– Light – is a kind of radiation, specifically the visible wavelengths
of electromagnetic radiation.
a. Tolerance – is the ability of organisms to survive and grow under
the canopy or in the shade.
* Very tolerant * tolerant * intermediate
* intolerant * very intolerant
b. Photoperiodism
- Refers to the length of lights and dark portions of the 24-hour day.
- The longest day occurs about on June 21
- The shortest day is December 21
- Normal day and night occur in March 21 and September 21
- For many organisms, day length or photoperiod is an important
factor in the scheduling of their life history events.
- It appears that organisms have a daily rhythm of susceptibility to
light stimulation.
- The following are the classes of organisms according to daily
cycles or rhythms:
*Diurnal organisms – those organisms that are active in daylight.
*Nocturnal organisms – those organisms that are active at night.
*Crepuscular organisms – those organisms that are active at
dawn.
*Matutinal organism – those organism that are primary active in
the pre-dawn hours or early morning.
D. Soil
• Is the loose subsurface materials of land in which plants grow.
• It is composed of fragments of the parent material, organic matter in
various stages of breakdown, soil water and the minerals and organic
compounds dissolved in it.
• Plays an important role in plant grows.
• Generally, soils developed a vertical structure otherwise known as the
soil profile.
• Soil scientists recognized three main layers or horizon of soils:
*A horizon – uppermost layer (topsoil) where most of the plant roots are
located. Dead organic matter is added to the top as litter and it is partially
broken up mixed as humus with the mineral soil below.
*B horizon – organic materials is
largely absent in this layer but of
high quantity of less weathered
mineral parent materials. Materials
leached from A horizon such as
calcium carbonate may be
deposited here. (subsoil)
*C horizon – consist of more or
less unaltered parent materials
such as glacial drifts or bedrock.
A soil which has both large and
small particles well presented is
called loam.
E. Fire
- Ecologist believe that it is a natural part of
the environment and that is useful even
necessary tool in managing some
ecosystem.
- 3 types of fire;
- Surface fire – fire that sweeps rapidly over
the ground, consuming litter and herbs often
killing the above ground stems and scorching
tree bases.
- Ground fire – flameless fire and it is
subterranean that may burn slowly for a long
periods that practically kills most of the
plants.
- Crown fire – fire that spread rapidly through
the canopy of plants killing most of it from the
ground up.
F. Pollution
- The unfavorable modification of the environment by man’s activity.
- This affect individual organisms diretly by weakening or killing it so
does in the population and ecosystem levels.
- Basic types of pollution;
a. non-biodegradable – refers to a materials and poisons such as aluminum
cans, mercury, etc.
b. Biodegradable – refers to pollution such as domestic sewage that can b
rapidly decomposed by natural processes or engineered system that
enhance nature’s great capacity to decompose and recycle.
– The following are the classification of pollution in the environment;
* Air pollution * chemical pollution * noise pollution
* Water pollution * soil pollution * thermal pollution
• Biotic component basically represented by all living entities
in the ecosystem.
– The major categories are:
a. Producer
b. Consumer
- primary consumer
- secondary consumer
- tertiary consumer
c. Decomposer (converter)