Sections of ecology and their brief description. The main sections of ecology

Man, being part of the noosphere, is forced to solve the problems of interaction of society with the environment. A science that examines and analyzes the relationships between populations of living organisms between themselves and the environment, and also studies the influence of environmental factors on plant, animal, and other life forms, is called ecology. For a more detailed study of them, this biological discipline is divided into branches: synecology, autecology, demecology, human ecology.

They are integrated and are part of an interdisciplinary complex that includes not only ecology sections, but also other sciences: economics, sociology, psychology. This article will be devoted to the study of branches of environmental science and the determination of their importance for human development in harmony with wildlife.

Sections of ecology and their brief description

The task of the disciplines is a deeper and more comprehensive study of various aspects of science: biological, social and economic. For example, the main attention is paid to the peculiarities of the relationship between plants, animals and bacteria with their environment, general ecology as a science. Sections of ecology solve the problems of the livelihoods of populations in biogeocenoses. Geoecology considers the specifics of living communities in specific geographical conditions: in the mountains, freshwater bodies of water, seas, etc. Next, we consider the above and other sections of ecology in more detail.

Tasks of general ecology

The most important of them is the study of natural resources at the levels of their organization. Such a section as autecology systematizes various manifestations of environmental conditions, delimiting them into abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic factors. It is known how important the temperature regime, illumination and water supply for the life of plants, animals and humans. Scientists also analyze adaptations that occur under the influence of changing conditions both in populations and at the level of biogeocenosis.

Synecology, like other sections of modern ecology, explores the interaction of elements of biogeocenosis at the level of groups of organisms of various biological species. They are expressed in such forms as mutualism, parasitism, commensalism, symbiosis. It should be noted that environmental factors studied at the ecology level are refracted through the life forms of various organisms, which is a fundamental difference between them and studies conducted, for example, in climatology, soil science or hydrology.

Demecology - the key to understanding the functioning of biocenosis

This section of environmental science studies the properties of the basic structural unit of living nature - the population. This concept covers a group of organisms of one biological species that live in a common territory - the range. Scientific discipline, like other main sections of ecology, classifies populations into local, geographical and ecological species. She studies in detail the properties of living communities, such as the ability to reproduce and evolution, highlighting their varieties - permanent and temporal. The latter in the process of phylogenesis can transform into permanent populations or eliminate.

How interspecies communities are distinguished

The logical continuation of the study of the properties of a population of living organisms is synecology. She, like other sections of general ecology, analyzes the patterns of relationships between organisms of various species, established in the process of evolution. They reflect the hierarchy of ecosystems and consist of subordinate levels. Studies of the life of plants, microorganisms, animals in their natural habitat are carried out by scientists to establish patterns that organize them into biocenoses.

How do organisms adapt to changes in environmental factors?

We will get answers to this question, considering the main sections of ecology, in particular, such a discipline as autecology. It formulated several postulates explaining the mechanisms of adaptation, for example, the law of optimum, which establishes for each organism the boundaries of its life according to all abiotic factors (the so-called tolerance limits). The center of this zone of life is called the optimum. This is the range of the most favorable living conditions for a living organism.

Due to the sharp deterioration of the external environment in science, the need arose to identify adaptation mechanisms that form in living organisms as a result of physico-chemical and radioactive contamination of the biosphere.

Human exposure to biogeocenoses

It is comprehensively studied by several scientific disciplines, which include sections of applied ecology. As a person developing industry and infrastructure, agriculture. changes the face of natural complexes? How does the application of the latest nanotechnology transform the face of the earth? The answers to these questions are given to us by the following sections of ecology: the theory of artificial systems, urban ecology, biospherology. Anthropogenic factors, both direct (for example, pollution of the hydrosphere by industrial and domestic effluents, predatory deforestation, poaching), and indirect (for example, the creation of artificial seas - reservoirs, plowing of land, leading to soil erosion and salinity, drainage of swamps), change the equilibrium natural biosystems - biocenoses and are a direct threat to life on Earth. The Red Book is a vivid confirmation of the criminal activity of man, leading to the extinction and death of a huge number of biological species.

Prospects for Applied Ecology

This is a relatively young branch of science, included in the sections of ecology. The table below defines all its substructural branches associated with the main areas of human activity and the relationship of society with wildlife.

So bioresource and industrial ecology offers gentle methods of exploitation of agricultural lands, forests, seas and other ecosystems, which are aimed at preserving their fertility and productivity.

The relevance of research in urban ecology

Studying the various departments of ecology, let us dwell on the discipline highlighting the problems that arise in the urban environment and are associated with a disproportion in the development of urban infrastructure and biogeocenosis, in which urbanization processes take place. Systems of heat and water supply, sewerage, transport network, territories for the disposal of municipal solid waste are created by humans, as a rule, without taking into account the safety of natural complexes. As a result of this, natural forest plantations disappear, water bodies become shallow, the populations of insects, birds and small mammals living in the ecosystem are reduced. As a result, modern megacities are huge high-rise conglomerates built of plastic, glass and concrete. They are completely alien to natural biosystems.

Urboecology is trying to find acceptable, compromise ways of functioning already built cities, and also determines the requirements for building new cities taking into account the needs of elements of natural ecosystems: plant and animal organisms. Science also predicts the effects of human activities and monitors the state of soil, water and the atmosphere in large cities.