Introduction of ecology

Ecology

Ecology term is derived from Greek words; ‘οἶκος’ meaning "house", or "environment” and ‘λογία’ meaning "study of”. Ecology is a branch of biology, that studies the interactions among organisms and their biophysical environment, which includes both biotic and abiotic components.
Ecology term was coined by German scientist Ernst Haeckel in 1886.

Terminology in ecology

Species

Most popular definition of species is given by Ernst Mayr during 20th century. According to him, "A biological species is a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature and produce fertile offspring". Since then more than 26 definitions of species are given with their merits and demerits.
In terms of ecology "species a uniform interbreeding population spread over time and space."

Population

Population is the group of individual organisms of the same species in a given area.

Community

Community is a group of populations of different species is a given area.

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is the whole biotic community in a given area plus its abiotic environment.

Biome

A biome is a community of plants and animals living together in a certain kind of climate. A biome can be made up of many ecosystems.

Biosphere/ecosphere

The planet earth along with the atmosphere (air, land and water) that sustains life is biosphere.

Vegetation

The collective and continuous growth of plant in space is called vegetation.

Flora

Flora is the species content of the region.

Producer/autotrophs

Producers are green plants including photosynthetic bacteria and chemosynthetic microbes. They fix light energy and build complex organic substrates.

Consumer/heterotrophs

Consumers are the organisms, that consume matter built up by the producers.

Decomposer/microconsumer/saprotrophs

They include bacteria, actinomycetes and fungi. They break the complex compounds and release inorganic nutrient in the environment, making them available again to the autotrophs.