Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical, biological and information sciences to the study of the environment, and the solution of environmental problems. Environmental science emerged from the fields of natural history and medicine during the Enlightenment. Today it provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems.
In ecology, a biological interaction is the effect that a pair of organisms living together in a community have on each other. They can be either of the same species, or of different species. These effects may be short-term, like pollination and predation, or long-term; both often strongly influence the evolution of the species involved. A long-term interaction is called a symbiosis. Symbioses range from mutualism, beneficial to both partners, to competition, harmful to both partners. Interactions can be indirect, through intermediaries such as shared resources or common enemies.
Allelopathy is a biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the germination, growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals and can have beneficial or detrimental effects on the target organisms and the community. Allelochemicals are a subset of secondary metabolites, which are not required for metabolism of the allelopathic organism. Allelochemicals with negative allelopathic effects are an important part of plant defense against herbivory.
A hyperparasite is a parasite whose host, often an insect, is also a parasite, often specifically a parasitoid. Hyperparasites are found mainly among the wasp-waisted Apocrita within the Hymenoptera, and in two other insect orders, the Diptera and Coleoptera (beetles). Seventeen families in Hymenoptera and a few species of Diptera and Coleoptera are hyperparasitic. Hyperparasitism developed from primary parasitism, which evolved in the Jurassic period in the Hymenoptera. Hyperparasitism intrigues entomologists because of its multidisciplinary relationship to evolution, ecology, behavior, biological control, taxonomy, and mathematical models.
Native plants are plants indigenous to a given area in geologic time. This includes plants that have developed, occur naturally, or existed for many years in an area.
Ecological facilitation or probiosis describes species interactions that benefit at least one of the participants and cause harm to neither. Facilitations can be categorized as mutualisms, in which both species benefit, or commensalisms, in which one species benefits and the other is unaffected. Much of classic ecological theory has focused on negative interactions such as predation and competition, but positive interactions (facilitation) are receiving increasing focus in ecological research. This article addresses both the mechanisms of facilitation and the increasing information available concerning the impacts of facilitation on community ecology.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ecology:
The Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology is located on Beutenberg Campus in Jena, Germany. It was founded in March 1996 and is one of 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society. Chemical ecology examines the role of chemical signals that mediate the interactions between plants, animals, and their environment, as well as the evolutionary and behavioral consequences of these interactions. The managing directors of the institute is David G. Heckel.
Charles Henry Gimingham was a British botanist at the University of Aberdeen, patron of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, former president of the British Ecological Society, and one of the leading researchers of heathlands and heathers.
In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area and in a particular time, also known as a biocoenosis. The term community has a variety of uses. In its simplest form it refers to groups of organisms in a specific place or time, for example, "the fish community of Lake Ontario before industrialization".
Plant and Soil is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on the relationships between plants and soil, such as relationships and interactions of plants with minerals, water and microbes, the anatomy and morphology of roots, soil biology and ecology, etc. It is published by Springer Science+Business Media on behalf of the Royal Netherlands Society of Agricultural Science. The editor-in-chief is Hans Lambers. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 2.969.
Robert F. Denno (1945–2008) was an influential insect ecologist. He wrote more than 130 research papers that helped advance the study of plant–insect interactions, interspecific competition, predator prey interactions and food web dynamics. He studied the ecology of sap-feeding insects, both in natural and cultivated settings. His study of wing polymorphism expanded into the fields of life history evolution, plant and herbivore interactions, community ecology, and many aspects of predator ecology, reviewed recently in Denno et al. (2005).
Plant ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology which studies the distribution and abundance of plants, the effects of environmental factors upon the abundance of plants, and the interactions among and between plants and other organisms. Examples of these are the distribution of temperate deciduous forests in North America, the effects of drought or flooding upon plant survival, and competition among desert plants for water, or effects of herds of grazing animals upon the composition of grasslands.
New Phytologist is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published on behalf of the New Phytologist Trust by Wiley-Blackwell. It was founded in 1902 by botanist Arthur Tansley, who served as editor until 1931.
In ecology, a priority effect is the impact that a particular species can have on community development due to prior arrival at a site.
Plant use of endophytic fungi in defense occurs when endophytic fungi, which live symbiotically with the majority of plants by entering their cells, often fungus or bacteruim, are utilized as an indirect defense against herbivores. In exchange for carbohydrate energy resources, the fungus provides benefits to the plant which can include increased water or nutrient uptake and protection from phytophagous insects, birds or mammals. Once associated, the fungi alter nutrient content of the plant and enhance or begin production of secondary metabolites. The change in chemical composition acts to deter herbivory by insects, grazing by ungulates and/or oviposition by adult insects. Endophyte-mediated defense can also be effective against pathogens and non-herbivory damage.
Lysibia nana is a hyperparasitoid wasp that attacks the parasitoid wasp Cotesia glomerata.
Tritrophic interactions as they relate to plant defense against herbivory describe the ecological impacts of three trophic levels on each other: the plant, the herbivore, and its natural enemies, predators of the herbivore. They may also be called multitrophic interactions when further trophic levels, such as soil microbes, or hyperparasitoids, are considered. Tritrophic interactions join pollination and seed dispersal as vital biological functions which plants perform via cooperation with animals.
Vartika Mathur is an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi. Dr. Mathur was the only Indian to have received the prestigious NFP fellowship in 2008 from Nuffic - an organization in partnership with Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Netherlands) and Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This fellowship enabled her to pursue a PhD in Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands, under the supervision of Professors Louise Vet and Nicole van Dam. She worked in the Netherlands and India for four years and was awarded a PhD in 2012.
Kornelia Smalla is a chemist and biotechnologist at the Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI) in Braunschweig and a university lecturer in microbiology at the Technical University of Braunschweig.
