Hungry sea otters are helping save California's marshlands from erosion
The return of sea otters and their voracious appetites has helped rescue a section of California marshland, a new study shows.
The return of sea otters and their voracious appetites has helped rescue a section of California marshland, a new study shows.
Ecology
Feb 3, 2024
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37
Last year was a grim season for sea turtles in Queensland's Wide Bay-Burnett region with more than 10 times the usual number of sick and dying animals, including over 100 turtles, pulled from the water.
Ecology
Aug 21, 2023
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17
To achieve tangible solutions for ocean conservation, we should listen to the people who are most affected by the current problems facing the ocean: the people in the tropics, say 25 co-authors of "Engaging the Tropical Majority ...
Environment
Jul 6, 2023
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19
Brazil's coastal waters teem with a rich array of species that paint a living tapestry beneath the waves. This underwater world is particularly special because many of its species are endemic—they are found nowhere else ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 2, 2023
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5
As an ecologist, Dr. Julia Tavares often has to consider how to collect data from remote locations.
Ecology
Apr 29, 2023
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15
Most people find sharks threatening. Who doesn't have an image in their mind of a menacing shark fin racing through the ocean in search of its next meal?
Plants & Animals
Mar 1, 2023
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7
Marine ecologists from UNSW Sydney working to regrow kelp seaweed are calling on the public to participate in a global challenge to restore a million hectares of lost underwater forest by 2040.
Ecology
Feb 20, 2023
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8
Shallow reefs and the creatures that inhabit them are changing due to rising ocean temperatures, but these impacts have been obscured by a lack of comprehensive local data. A team of researchers in Australia has been tracking ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 22, 2022
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20
University College Cork (UCC) researchers have found that that cloudier waters, caused in part by climate change, is making it harder for seabirds to catch fish.
Plants & Animals
Jul 28, 2022
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32
A Cape Cod science center and one of the world's largest shipping businesses are collaborating on a project to use robotic buoys to protect a vanishing whale from lethal collisions with ships.
Ecology
May 28, 2022
0
361
Ecology (from Greek: οἶκος, oikos, "house"; -λογία, -logia, "study of") is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the distribution and abundance of organisms and their interactions with their environment. The environment of an organism includes all external factors, including abiotic ones such as climate and geology, and biotic factors, including members of the same species (conspecifics) and other species that share a habitat. If the general life science of biology is viewed as a hierarchy of levels of organization, from molecular processes, to cells, tissues and organs, and finally to the individual, the population and the ecosystem, then the study of the latter three levels belongs within the purview of ecology.
Examples of objects of ecological study include: Population processes, including reproductive behavior, mortality, bioenergetics and migrations, interspecific interactions such as predation, competition, parasitism and mutualism, plant and animal community structures and their function and resilience, and biogeochemical cycling. Because of its vast scope, ecological science is often closely related to other disciplines. Thus, molecular ecology addresses ecological questions using tools from genetics, paleoecology uses tools from archeology, and theoretical ecologists use often highly complex mathematical models to explore how ecosystems and their elements function.
Aside from pure scientific inquiry, ecology is also a highly applied science. Much of natural resource management, such as forestry, fisheries, wildlife management and habitat conservation is directly related to ecological sciences and many problems in agriculture, urban development and public health are informed by ecological considerations.
The term "ecology" has also been appropriated for philosophical ideologies like social ecology and deep ecology and is sometimes used as a synonym for the natural environment or environmentalism. Likewise "ecological" is often taken in the sense of environmentally friendly.
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