What is Ecology?

The word ecology derives from the Greek word oikos, meaning “home”. In 1870 German zoologist Ernst Haeckel defined ecology as follows:

By ecology, we mean the body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature - the investigation of the total relations of the animal both to its organic and to its inorganic environment; including above all, its friendly and inimical relation with those animals and plants with which it comes directly and indirectly into contact - in a word, ecology is the study of all the complex interrelationships referred to by Darwin as the conditions of the struggle for existence.

This definition still holds today - it is the study of interactions of all organisms (animals including humans, plants bacteria, fungi) with one another and with their environments. In short, ecology is the science of the living and breathing nature.

For example, when a shorebird catches a fish from the water, to an ecologist this event represents the sum-total interactions, up to that instant of time, of the bird and the fish with each other, and with all other biological species within and above the water, as well as with the surrounding environment.

Because ecology includes understanding the relationships between living beings and their environments, predicting the impacts of environmental degradation (such as global warming and habitat loss) on a biological species (such as the polar bear), and on the overall biodiversity and ecosystems, is an important goal of ecological research.

Why should I care about Ecology?

In today’s context of the heightened awareness about global warming and other human abuses on the earth’s environment, ecology is arguably the most important, and also least appreciated, branch of modern science.

Ecology is important, because it is fundamental to what little we know, and so much that we do not know, about maintaining a sustainable world - a world that will not run out of its finite supply of resources (such as food) and energy (such as fossil fuel) that nurture the rapidly growing humanity.

Ecology is under-appreciated, because we take the nature around us so much for granted that we often forget we are an integral part of her, and what is good for Mother Nature is good for us. The march of technology has only deepened this identity crisis, giving us a sense of detachment from, and an unhealthy disregard for, the other biological species that share the world with us.

A healthy biodiversity is key to maintaining the delicate balance of the global ecosystems, which provide essential resources and services for our own survival. When environmental stress drives a species to near extinction, we not only may lose that species for ever, the ecosystem balance itself may be at risk.

In a sense, ecology is to a sustainable earth as physics is to the technology - the latter cannot exist without the former.

So, yes, it pays to care about nature, and about ecology. Maybe next time when we pop that pill in our mouth, we should pause a little before marveling at the technology for saving our lives. Because, first and foremost, it is the ingredients in the pill, which are extracted from nature, that are really saving us.