The history of the development of ecology originates in antiquity itself. For a primitive primitive society was already characterized by a desire for knowledge of the environment. At this stage, the history of the development of ecology is full of information from ancient Egyptian, Tibetan, Indian sources.
People of antiquity accumulated factual material and tried to systematize it. Thus, the Babylonian manuscript books contain information about the technology of tillage, the time of sowing, animals and birds that harm agriculture. The oldest Chinese chronicles from the 4th to 2nd centuries BC e. contain descriptions of the growth of cultivated plants of different varieties. The sacred book of the ancient Persians is filled with advice about the need to protect the earth without desecrating it with "unclean" substances, protect animals, protect water and fire, and carefully cultivate the soil. There are quite a lot of descriptions of animals in the “Word about Igor’s Regiment”.
Thus, the history of the development of ecology began with the birth of agriculture, zoology, botany. In that era, the first elements of a human relationship to nature appeared.
The impetus for the progressive development of biological sciences was the numerous geographical discoveries in the 15th century, as well as the colonization of new lands. During this period, there was an active accumulation and description of the material. The works of many naturalists contain evidence of the diversity of living organisms, distribution, structural features of animals and plants, characteristic of a particular environment.
Quite a lot of environmental evidence was collected by scientists (naturalists and geographers) of Russia in the 18th century. Among the most prominent figures of that time, I. I. Lepekhin, S. P. Krasheninnikov, P. S. Pallas should be noted.
In the middle of the 19th century, K. Roulier (professor at Moscow University) made a great contribution to the development of science in Russia. This scientist formulated a principle that is taken as the basis of all natural sciences - this is the principle of the unity of the environment and the body.
The following stages in the development of ecology are characterized by specialists as a separation of science as a new field of knowledge about the environment. In this regard, various studies began to be carried out in large numbers. These main stages in the development of ecology were marked by the publication “The Origin of Species” in 1859, the victory of Darwin's evolutionary teachings. Thus, science has become a doctrine of the adaptation of organisms.
Haeckel defined ecology as the sum of knowledge that relates to the economy of nature. Within their framework, a study is carried out of the entire complex of interaction between the animal and its environment, both inorganic and organic. However, mainly, according to Haeckel, there is a study of hostile or friendly relations with those plants and animals with which a particular animal comes into contact. Thus, the science of ecology is the study of all the complex interactions, which, according to Darwin, are called conditions provoking the struggle for existence .
In 1910, the Third World Botanical Congress was convened. It officially recognized plant ecology. At it, scientists raised the question of dividing recognized science into the sphere of plant communities and plant individuals.
Since the 20th century, the history of the development of ecology is characterized by the beginning of many diverse studies, the creation of fundamental works that are devoted to both large-scale and narrow problems.
In modern conditions, there is a constant increase in the amount of information. Various environmental problems, theoretical environmental issues are becoming the scientific work of a number of research institutes.