What is Ecology ? History of Ecology

Ecology is the study of the relationship of organisms i.e . plants, animals and microorganism with their surrounding (environment).

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Ecol­o­gy

Hans Reit­er (1868) gave con­cept of ecol­o­gy. The term Ecol­o­gy is derived from words ‘oikos’ mean­ing home and ‘logos’ mean­ing study.

The term was coined in1869 by Ger­man biol­o­gist Ernst haeckel. 

Accord­ing to him Ecol­o­gy is a branch of sci­ence which deals with the study of inter­re­la­tion­ship between liv­ing organ­isms and their surroundings .

Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Ecol­o­gy has been defined as study of inter rela­tion­ship of organ­isms with their sur­round­ings. Var­i­ous oth­er def­i­n­i­tions have been giv­en by dif­fer­ent scientists.

Wood­bury (1954) defined Ecol­o­gy as sci­ence that inves­ti­gate organ­isms in rela­tion to their envi­ron­ment. E.P. Odum (1969) defined Ecol­o­gy as the study of struc­ture and func­tion of nature.

His­to­ry of Ecology

The greek schol­ar , Theophras­tus (370 250 BC) was the first per­son to intro­duced a sci­en­tif­ic /ecological approach to the world. He described the rela­tion­ship between organ­isms and the envi­ron­ment in sci­en­tif­ic terms .

In the 18th cen­tu­ry , Euro­pean nat­u­ral­ist French Gorges buf­fon (1707 — 1788) intro­duced the con­cept of ecol­o­gy by describ­ing the rela­tion­ship of ani­mals to their envi­ron­ment in his book on Nat­ur­al History.

Plant geo­g­ra­phers such as Carl Lud­wing wilde now ( 1765- 1812) point­ed the role of environment/ sur­round­ings in the devel­op­ment of vegetation.

A Swedish nat­u­ral­ist , Carl Lin­naeus (1707- 1778) laid the grounds of mod­ern Ecol­o­gy around 250 years ago.

A Ger­man Exo­plor­er ‚Alexan­der Von Hum­boldt (1769 — 1859) stud­ied rela­tion­ship of veg­e­ta­tion and envi­ron­ment dur­ing his trav­els to var­i­ous parts of the world. He com­piled his find­ings in his book voy­age aux regions equnoxalis.

He described veg­e­ta­tion zones based on lat­i­tude and alti­tude . He cor­re­lat­ed veg­e­ta­tion with envi­ron­men­tal char­ac­ter­is­tics and coined the term ‘plant association’

Charles Dar­win (1809- 1882) gave the the­o­ry of Nat­ur­al selec­tion in his book ori­gin od species. He com­pared the sim­i­lar­i­ties and dis­sim­i­lar­i­ties between species found in dif­fer­ent regions . He attrib­uted dif­fer­ences in the species to geo­log­i­cal barriers.

The the­o­ry was based on the con­cept of com­pe­ti­tion between species . Her­bert spencer (1820 — 1903)was con­sid­ered as the founder of social Ecol­o­gy gave the con­cept of sur­vival of the fittest.

In Indi­an sce­nario , ancient /Classical epics and holy books such as Ramayan , Mahab­hara­ta, Vedas , Samhi­tas, Brah­manas and Araanyakas upan­ishads pro­vide a men­tion of basic eco­log­i­cal concepts 

The Charak samhi­ta and Sushru­ta San­hi­ta ancient Indi­an texts on med­i­cine and surgery men­tioned the role of plants in treat­ing human aliments 

The basic con­cepts of ecol­o­gy of ecol­o­gy in India began with the study of for­est veg­e­ta­tion by for­est officers. 

The first Com­pre­hen­sive account was giv­en by pro­fes­sor Dud­geon from Uni­ver­si­ty of Allah bad. 

Exten­sive gyne­co­log­i­cal stud­ies were car­ried out on grass­lands and for­est com­mu­ni­ties in India.

pro­fes­sor R. Mishra (1944 ‚1945) stud­ied Ecol­o­gy of aquat­ic plants and has been referred as Father of Indi­an Ecol­o­gy , gane meth­ods of soil analy­sis, estab­lished soci­ety for Trop­i­cal Ecol­o­gy in 1958 amd School of Ecol­o­gy at Banaras Hin­du Uni­ver­si­ty in 1960.

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Ecol­o­gy

Sub­di­vi­sion Of Ecology

Ecology has been divided into two types:

Aute­col­o­gy: It is the study of indi­vid­ual species in rela­tion to their envi­ron­ment. It includes the study of geo­graph­i­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion , tax­a­nom­ic posi­tion mor­pho­log­i­cal char­ac­ters , repro­duc­tion , life cycle and behav­iour of species with ref­er­ence to eco­log­i­cal fac­tors or environment.

Syne­col­o­gy : It is the study of a pop­u­la­tion or com­mu­ni­ty in rela­tion to their envi­ron­ment . it com­pris­es of com­mu­ni­ty and Ecosys­tem Ecol­o­gy . The com­po­si­tion and behav­ior of com­mu­ni­ties and their rela­tion­ship to the envi­ron­ment are studied.

It has been broad­ly clas­si­fied into two types of depend­ing upon the study of habitat.

  • Aquat­ic Ecology
  • Ter­res­tri­al Ecology

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