BIOL-208 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Landscape Ecology, Robert Macarthur, Macroecology
11 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Ecology: branch of science that studies the relationships between all organisms and their environments. Humans have always had to understand ecology to know where to find food and other necessities. Species interactions and ecological processes occur in all living systems - farms, fisheries,urban landscapes, and all expanses of wilderness, with natural selection being as strong in cities as in natural areas. What happens in one area can influence what happens among the interactions between organisms and their environment in another area. Across the planet, there are changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, water circulation, and air circulation. Grasslands decrease with agricultural expansion, fisheries collapse due to overexploitation, and nitrogen rains down because of industrial development. Ecology includes the study of both the broad and the specific: the whole planet to individual organisms to differing environments. Ecologists count individuals in populations, births and deaths, distribution, and rates of processes (photosynthesis, decomposition, etc)
