A person, being a part of the noosphere, is forced to resolve issues of interaction between society and the environment. The science that considers and analyzes the relationship of populations of living organisms between themselves and the environment, as well as studying the influence of natural factors on plant, animal and other forms of life, is called ecology. For a more detailed study of them, this biological discipline is divided into branches: synecology, autecology, dedemecology, human ecology.
They are integrated and are part of an interdisciplinary complex that includes not only sections of ecology, but also other sciences: economics, sociology, psychology. This article will be devoted to studying the branches of environmental science and determining their significance 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 focus is onthe peculiarities of the relationship of plants, animals and bacteria with their habitat general ecology as a science. Sections of ecology solve the problems of life support of populations in biogeocenoses. Geoecology considers the specifics of the habitat of living communities in specific geographical conditions: in mountains, freshwater reservoirs, seas, etc. Next, we will consider the above and other sections of ecology in more detail.
Problems of general ecology
The most important of them is the study of natural resources by 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 are 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 level of ecology are refracted through the life forms of various organisms, which is their fundamental difference from studies conducted, for example, in climatology, soil science or hydrology.
Demecology is the key to understanding the functioning of the biocenosis
Thisthe branch of environmental science studies the properties of the main structural unit of living nature - the population. This concept covers a group of organisms of the same biological species living in a common area - an area. The scientific discipline, like other major branches of ecology, classifies populations into local, geographic, and ecological species. It also studies in detail such properties of living communities as the ability to reproduce and evolve, highlighting their varieties - permanent and temporal. The latter in the process of phylogenesis can be transformed into permanent populations or eliminated.
How interspecific communities are distinguished
The logical continuation of the study of the properties of a population of living organisms is synecology. It, like other sections of general ecology, analyzes the patterns of relationships between organisms of various species that have been 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 changing environmental factors?
We will get answers to this question by considering the main sections of ecology, in particular such a discipline as autecology. It formulates several postulates that explain the mechanisms of adaptation, for example, the law of optimum, which establishes for each organism the boundaries of its vital activity for all abiotic factors (socalled tolerance limits). The center of this living zone 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, it became necessary to identify adaptive mechanisms that are formed in living organisms as a result of physicochemical and radioactive contamination of the biosphere.
Human impact on 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 appearance of natural complexes? How will the application of the latest nanotechnologies transform the face of the Earth? The following sections of ecology give us answers to these questions: the theory of artificial systems, urban ecology, and biospherology. Anthropogenic factors, both direct (for example, pollution of the hydrosphere with industrial and domestic effluents, predatory deforestation, poaching), and indirect (for example, the creation of artificial seas - reservoirs, plowing of land, leading to erosion and salinization of the soil, drainage of swamps), change the balance natural biosystems - biocenoses and are a direct threat to life on Earth. The Red Book is a vivid confirmation of human criminal activity, leading to the extinction and death of a huge number of biological species.
Prospects for Applied Ecology
This is a relatively young industryscience, included in the sections of ecology. The table below defines all of its substructural branches associated with the main areas of human activity and the relationship of society with wildlife.
|
Theoretical ecology |
General ecology | Synecology, dedemecology, autecology |
| Bioecology | Biospherology, ecology of living organisms, paleoecology | |
|
Applied ecology |
Across the landscape | Geological, atmospheric |
| Technoecology | Field, construction | |
| Socioecology | Eco-education, eco-law, eco-culture |
So bioresource and industrial ecology offers gentle methods of exploitation of agricultural lands, forests, seas and other ecosystems, which are aimed at maintaining their fertility and productivity.
Relevance of urban ecology research
Studying various departments of ecology, let's focus on the discipline that highlights 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, a transport network, territories for the disposal of solid household waste are created by man, as a rule, without taking into account the safety of natural complexes. As a result, disappearnatural forest plantations, shallow water bodies, declining populations of insects, birds and small mammals living in the ecosystem. As a result, modern megacities are huge high-rise conglomerates built of plastic, glass and concrete. They are completely alien to natural biosystems.
Urboecology tries to find acceptable, compromise ways of functioning of already built cities, and also determines the requirements for the development of new megacities, taking into account the needs of elements of natural ecosystems: plant and animal organisms. Science also predicts the consequences of human activity and monitors the state of soil, water and atmosphere in large cities.
