Biology – The natural science that studies life. Areas of focus include structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.
Physical geography is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere. This focus is in contrast with the branch of human geography, which focuses on the built environment, and technical geography, which focuses on using, studying, and creating tools to obtain, analyze, interpret, and understand spatial information. The three branches have significant overlap, however.
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area. Phytogeography is the branch of biogeography that studies the distribution of plants. Zoogeography is the branch that studies distribution of animals. Mycogeography is the branch that studies distribution of fungi, such as mushrooms.
A biocenosis, coined by Karl Möbius in 1877, describes the interacting organisms living together in a habitat (biotope). The use of this term has declined in the 21st сentury.
This glossary of ecology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts in ecology and related fields. For more specific definitions from other glossaries related to ecology, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of evolutionary biology, and Glossary of environmental science.
Palynology is the study of microorganisms and microscopic fragments of mega-organisms that are composed of acid-resistant organic material and occur in sediments, sedimentary rocks, and even some metasedimentary rocks. Palynomorphs are the microscopic, acid-resistant organic remains and debris produced by a wide variety of plants, animals, and Protista that have existed since the late Proterozoic.
Palaeogeography is the study of historical geography, generally physical landscapes. Palaeogeography can also include the study of human or cultural environments. When the focus is specifically on landforms, the term paleogeomorphology is sometimes used instead. Paleomagnetism, paleobiogeography, and tectonic history are among its main tools.
Environmental archaeology is a sub-field of archaeology which emerged in 1970s and is the science of reconstructing the relationships between past societies and the environments they lived in. The field represents an archaeological-palaeoecological approach to studying the palaeoenvironment through the methods of human palaeoecology and other geosciences. Reconstructing past environments and past peoples' relationships and interactions with the landscapes they inhabited provide archaeologists with insights into the origins and evolution of anthropogenic environments and human systems. This includes subjects such as including prehistoric lifestyle adaptations to change and economic practices.
Geobiology is a field of scientific research that explores the interactions between the physical Earth and the biosphere. It is a relatively young field, and its borders are fluid. There is considerable overlap with the fields of ecology, evolutionary biology, microbiology, paleontology, and particularly soil science and biogeochemistry. Geobiology applies the principles and methods of biology, geology, and soil science to the study of the ancient history of the co-evolution of life and Earth as well as the role of life in the modern world. Geobiologic studies tend to be focused on microorganisms, and on the role that life plays in altering the chemical and physical environment of the pedosphere, which exists at the intersection of the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and/or cryosphere. It differs from biogeochemistry in that the focus is on processes and organisms over space and time rather than on global chemical cycles.
Macrofossils, also known as megafossils, are the preserved remnants of organic beings and their activities that are large enough to be visible without a microscope. The term macrofossil stands in opposition to the term microfossil. Microfossils, by contrast, require substantial magnification for evaluation by fossil-hunters or professional paleontologists. As a result, most fossils observed in the field and most specimens are macrofossils. Macrofossils come in many varieties and form in various ways depending on their environment and what is being fossilized including plant, fungi and animal remnants.
Biogeomorphology and ecogeomorphology are the study of interactions between organisms and the development of landforms, and are thus fields of study within geomorphology and ichnology. Organisms affect geomorphic processes in a variety of ways. For example, trees can reduce landslide potential where their roots penetrate to underlying rock, plants and their litter inhibit soil erosion, biochemicals produced by plants accelerate the chemical weathering of bedrock and regolith, and marine animals cause the bioerosion of coral. The study of the interactions between marine biota and coastal landform processes is called coastal biogeomorphology.
Paleolimnology is a scientific sub-discipline closely related to both limnology and paleoecology. Paleolimnological studies focus on reconstructing the past environments of inland waters using the geologic record, especially with regard to events such as climatic change, eutrophication, acidification, and internal ontogenic processes.
Paleobiology is an interdisciplinary field that combines the methods and findings found in both the earth sciences and the life sciences. Paleobiology is not to be confused with geobiology, which focuses more on the interactions between the biosphere and the physical Earth.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ecology:
Biostratinomy is the study of the processes that take place after an organism dies but before its final burial. It is considered to be a subsection of the science of taphonomy, along with necrology and diagenesis. These processes are largely destructive, and include physical, chemical and biological effects:
In paleoecology and ecological forecasting, a no-analog community or climate is one that is compositionally different from a baseline for measurement. Alternative naming conventions to describe no-analog communities and climates may include novel, emerging, mosaic, disharmonious and intermingled.
Anna Katherine "Kay" Behrensmeyer is an American taphonomist and paleoecologist. She is a pioneer in the study of the fossil records of terrestrial ecosystems and engages in geological and paleontological field research into the ecological context of human evolution in East Africa. She is Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). At the museum, she is co-director of the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems program and an associate of the Human Origins Program.
Jacquelyn Gill is a paleoecologist and assistant professor of climate science at the University of Maine. She has worked on such as the relationship between megafauna and vegetation in the Pleistocene, and the sediment cores of Jamaica. Gill is also a science communicator on climate change.
Conservation paleobiology is a field of paleontology that applies the knowledge of the geological and paleoecological record to the conservation and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Despite the influence of paleontology on ecological sciences can be traced back at least at the 18th century, the current field has been established by the work of K.W. Flessa and G.P. Dietl in the first decade of the 21st century. The discipline utilizes paleontological and geological data to understand how biotas respond to climate and other natural and anthropogenic environmental change. These information are then used to address the challenges faced by modern conservation biology, like understanding the extinction risk of endangered species, providing baselines for restoration and modelling future scenarios for species range's contraction or expansion.
The Neotoma Paleoecology Database (Neotoma) is an open international data resource that stores and shares multiple kinds of fossil, paleoecological, and paleoenvironmental data. Neotoma specializes in fossil data holdings at timescales covering the last several decades to the last several million years. Neotoma is organized and led by scientists and enhances data consistency through community curation by experts. Neotoma data are open to all and available to anyone with an internet connection.
