ECOLOGY

- Ecology is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of life and the interactions between organisms and their natural environment. The environment of an organism includes physical properties, which can be described as the sum of local abiotic factors such as insolation (sunlight), climate, and geology, and biotic ecosystem, which includes other organisms that share its habitat.

The term ecology or oekologie was coined by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866, when he defined it as "the comprehensive science of the relationship of the organism to the environment".

Ecology is usually considered a branch of biology, the general science that studies living organisms. Organisms can be studied at many different levels, from proteins and nucleic acids (in biochemistry and molecular biology), to cells (in cellular biology), to individuals (in botany, zoology, and other similar disciplines), and finally at the level of populations, communities, and ecosystems.

Credits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology