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Ruang Lingkup Ekologi

HISTORY OF ECOLOGY

Ecology is generally spoken of as a new science, having only become prominent in the second half of the 20th Century. More precisely, there is agreement that ecology emerged as a distinct discipline at the turn of the 20th Century, and that it gained public prominence in the 1960s, due to widespread concern for the state of the environment. Nonetheless, ecological thinking at some level has been around for a long time, and the principles of ecology have developed gradually, closely intertwined with the development of other biological disciplines. Thus, one of the first ecologists may have been Aristotle or perhaps his student, Theophrastus, both of whom had interest in many species of animals. Theophrastus described interrelationships between animals and between animals and their environment as early as the 4th century BC (Ramalay, 1940).

The term ecology was first used by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1869), however, this science has its origins in other sciences such as biology, geology and evolution among others.

Lamarck with his theory of evolution, proposed that the environment is in constant transformation, by which agencies need change and make an effort to achieve this, and this is a mechanism of evolution, one of the main bases of ecology taking into account the relationships of organisms and their environment.

On the other hand, not only the agencies change and evolve, but also the Earth’s crust. The English geologist Charles Lyell found that the Earth’s crust is the result of gradual changes throughout the history of the planet. Giving way to the transformation of ecosystems and their functions.

Modern ecology, actually had its principles with the development of the theory of Darwinian evolution. He noted that the environment is constantly changing which causes the agencies with best adaptations are those who survive by the mechanism of natural selection. Highlighting the importance of the interaction of organisms with their environment.

 Although the ecology was born in the 19th century, with the work of Haeckel, ecology began to flourish until the 20th century, when the first ecological journals and ecological societies appeared.

The definition of Haeckel, has been the subject of interpretations something different and perhaps more profound since 1900. For example, the English ecologist Charles Elton defined ecology as the “scientific natural history” which deals with the “sociology and economy of animals”. An American plant ecologist, Frederick Clements, considered that ecology was “the science of the community”, and the contemporary American ecologist Eugene Odum defined, perhaps too widely, as ‘the study of the structure and function of nature’.

The first conceptions of the “genotypic” begin in the third decade of the 20th century or ecology of communities, where the concept of community as superior hierarchical level of organization, includes different people interacting with its environment. However this concept, attached to the biological origin of ecology, once again was decoupled agencies that defined it. Later, as it is the case still, stood “biotope” as a place where is found the community but by characteristics inherent in the physical environment, not by their relationship to agencies.

In the Decade of the 40s, Tansley (1935) proposed the concept of “ecosystem”. This term was later developed by Lindeman (1941), who conceived it from exchanges of energy, in response to the need for concepts that link various agencies to their physical environments. In the texts of ecology of the 1950s and still later, designating ecosystem as the sum of the various communities (or biocoenosis) and biotope (inert atmosphere). In this type of definition is notable as agencies or the community are made disociadamente of the environment, because that ecosystem is defined by the sum of terms.

ECOLOGICAL THINKING, What Is It?
The science of ecology for as far as we know always had a holistic approach to nature, being connected by systems and communities. Ecological thinking becomes necessary for us to survive and have the Earth be sufficient for the years to come. According to Shoshanah Keni, we play a big part in the “open systems” of ecology and the world around us because we are actors, who interract with the different components within the system and we are also reflectors, who are fully aware the system and how we interact within in, which makes us responsible for understanding the actions we take.
We have to understand that there is only a certain amount of resources to our disposal, and this is where thinking ecologically helps us think of better ways to be resourceful. This is where we can use Mitchel Resnick’s TREE strategy:
Test Randomly (send roots out in all directions) Evalute (determine which roots find the best soil)
Elect (choose which direction to move, based on the information from the roots)
Over time, the best strategy will appear through the evaluation of trial and error. Ecological strategies has two common characteristics, being responsive to local conditions and adaptive to changing conditions. In a sense of being responsive, decisions are based on local information which are combined simple factors, not just a centralized solution. Also, being adaptive to changing conditions allows for adjusting to produce new solutions to fit the needs of the new conditions.

ECOLOGY AND OTHER SCIENCE

Ecology is one of the main divisions of biology, the other two being morphology and physiology. The emphasis in morphology is on how organisms are made, in physiology on how they function, and in ecology, on how they live. These divisions overlap broadly.

To appreciate fully the structure of an organ, one needs to know how it functions, and the way it functions, is clearly related to environmental conditions. The morphologist is concerned with problems of anatomy, histology, cytology, embryology, evolution and genetics; the physiologist, with interpreting functions in terms of chemistry, physics and mathematics; and the ecologist, with distribution, behaviour, populations and communities in relation to the environment (ecosystems). The evolution of adaptation and of species is of mutual interest to