What is Ecology? Ecology is the scientific study of interactions between organisms with one another and with their environment. Ecology also deals with the abundance of organisms in an environment as well. Ecology also includes the study of plant and animal populations, plant and animal communities and ecosystems. Ecosystems describe the web or network of relations among organisms at different scales of organization. The parts of this scale are the individual organism, the population, the community, the environment, the biome, and the biosphere. Since ecology refers to any form of diversity in an environment, ecologists, or scientist who study ecology, research everything from tiny bacteria to tropical rain forests.
The environment that we have selected for our ecology project is the lake and the area surrounding it that is located on school grounds. The lake is a host to a whole host of abiotic and biotic factors as it provides the key resource needed for life to survive, water. The abiotic factors that are located near the lake that can be found are soil, rocks, sunlight and air. The biotic factors that could be found are fish, dandelions, flowers, trees, and mushrooms. In the lake you can find the water that fills it and the fish that inhabit it. Surrounding the lake is soil and rocks with a whole host of plants and fungi like dandelions, flowers, trees, and mushrooms. Finally one of the most key abiotic factors is sunlight which helps determine the temperature of the area and the growth of plants. |