Introduction to ecology
Origin of the term
The
term main comes from the Greek word “Oikos” meaning “household”, “home” or “place to live”. The term “oecology” was first coined and used by German
biologist, Ernst Haeckel in 1869. There were few conceptual terms already
proposed to reveal relationships between organisms and their environment. For
example, French zoologist, Isodore Geofroy St. Hillarie used the term
‘ethology’ in 1859, for the study of the relations of the organisms within the
family and society in the aggregate and in the community.
What is Ecology?
In simple term, ecology
is a science that studies the interdependent, mutually reactive and
interconnected relationship between the organisms and their physical
environment on the hand and among the organisms on the one hand. We also define
ecology as that science which studies, interrelations between abiotic and
biotic components of the biospheric ecosystem on one hand, among biotic
components on the other hand. Generally ecology is divided into two types which
are autecology and Synecology. Autecology is concerned with the study of
ecological relations of individual species in a given ecosystem whereas
synecology is the study of plant communities in relation to their habitats of
given ecosystem.