What is Ecology?

0:00 hi everyone welcome to the channel my name is Dr Sam Monroe and in this video I'm going to explain what ecology is what ecologists like me actually study and why it matters [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello and welcome if you are new to the channel my name is Dr Salmon Rowe and I am an ecologist that means I study plants and animals and how they interact with their environment I have studied all sorts of wildlife in my career from sharks to shrimps to shrubs and here on YouTube I Like to make videos explaining ecology breaking down ecology that we see in the media and talking about what it's like to be a scientist given that

0:46 this channel is all about talking about ecology I thought it was probably a good idea as one of my first videos to explain what ecology actually is and what an ecologist like me does for a living so let let's not waste any time and get right to it what is ecology ecology is the science that deals with the relationships between organisms and their environment in other words ecologists study how plants animals and microbes interact with each other and the places that they live ecologists study three main types of questions first they want to understand the structure of an environment like mapping out a food web next they want to understand the processes that control an environment like the water cycle and third they want to understand any

1:33 changes that might be happening in the environment like if a population of a species is going up or down the study of ecology is incredibly important because it helps us understand the natural world not only what's going on around us but also how we as human beings might be impacting the world now ecology is a very broad area of research it can include all living creatures on the planet everything from amoebas to zebras and ecologists work on habitats at every possible scale from something as small as a pond to as large as the ocean for that reason ecological research is often divided and described in different categories so for the rest of this video I'm going to talk about what the different types of ecological research actually are what makes them different

2:19 and what makes them all so important let's begin with microbial ecology microbial ecology is the study of microbes and how they interact with their environment each other and larger plants and animals there are some that argue that microbial ecology isn't actually a traditional type of ecology but I completely disagree microbes are found in literally every part of our planet and our planet wouldn't function without them bacteria for example are found in all sorts of places like Soil and Water and they can help recycle things like carbon and oxygen in and out of the atmosphere this means a microbial ecologist can study things like climate change or farming all sorts of processes that are essential to life put simply without microbes none of the ecosystems

3:05 on our planet would function so it's a pretty fascinating branch of research the next type of ecology is species ecology this type of research is all about trying to understand a species relationship with its environment as well as other species it colleges that study a particular species try to answer questions like what does that species eat what habitats does it use and how does it reproduce species ecology also includes another branch of ecology known as behavioral ecology behavioral ecologists like to study things like The Mating behaviors of species or how they use their environment like if they build a nest they also like to study how they might interact with other species whether they compete with them or hunt them in a nutshell species ecologists want to try and understand all aspects

3:52 of a species biology and behavior and using that information they can better understand how this species survives how it impacts other species and how it impacts the environment as a whole I would describe my own work with sharks in this category for many years I studied things like shark diet and movement and habitat use so these are all aspects of their biology at colleges who study particular species tend to Define themselves by that species so for many years before I branched out into other areas of research I described myself as a shark ecologist species ecology is particularly important for work in conservation if we can learn about the biology of a species for example the habitats it uses or the food that it eats we can better design

4:39 programs that will protect those species and prevent them from going extinct the next type of ecology we're going to talk about is population ecology population ecologists measure the size of populations and look at how individuals are spread out across their environment a population ecologist keeps track of whether or not a population is going up or down or stay staying the same over time and tries to work out what might be causing those changes in population size for example a population might go down if a large portion of its habitat is suddenly destroyed there's not enough food in that environment or if humans overfish or hunt that species but a population might go up if there's a sudden increase in food resources or if humans do some work to restore their

5:24 habitat population ecologists also study how individuals are spread out in their environment something that is also referred to as population density so for example some species tend to live all close together in tight groups but in other species individuals rarely encounter one another and live very far away from one another population ecology is critical to making sure that species populations are healthy they can help us make sure that we're not over hunting or overfishing species and they can also warn us if a species is in danger of going extinct Community ecology is the the next level of ecological research on the environmental scale where instead of studying just one species the scientist studies the entire community that is all

6:09 of the species that live in a particular area usually Community ecologists Focus on understanding how all the different species in an area interact with one another and how they can all survive together or coexist for example a community ecologist will try and understand the food web of a given habitat and work out which species are at the top and the bottom of a food chain these kinds of studies help us understand not only how individual species but how entire communities survive together at the next environmental level ecologists tend to focus not on individual species or species in communities but on entire ecosystems landscape ecology examines the spatial distribution patterns of species communities habitats and

6:55 ecological processes across really large areas like a region state or even an entire Country Landscape ecologists are interested in how all these different things change over time and space and what causes them to change for example I have done research that looks at how the different types of grass that grow in Australia change depending on the climate this could be defined as landscape ecology because I was looking at how something changed over a really large scale this type of ecology is very important for conservation and management programs for example landscape ecologists can help us decide the best place to put a national park if we want to try and protect the most plants and animals possible landscape ecologists can also help us design environmentally friendly infrastructure

7:41 and agricultural projects for example they can tell us whether or not building a highway will disrupt the migration of a particular species All In All Landscape ecology is really important for helping us understand issues around sustainability and human environment interactions at large scales next there is ecosystem ecology an ecosystem is made up of all the living and non-living things in an environment so when ecosystem ecologist likes to study how all of the non-living parts of an ecosystem like soil and water interact with the living parts of an ecosystem like its plants and animals to put it another way ecosystem ecologists want to understand how ecosystems work in the same way a mechanic might want to understand why putting fuel into a car makes it run an

8:29 ecosystem ecologist wants to understand how the fundamental processes in an environment like the water cycle for example makes that ecosystem run an ecosystem ecologist might also study how essential nutrients like nitrogen cycle through the environment how they go from soil to plants to animals and back again through decomposition since nitrogen is essential to life if there was no nitrogen cycle there would be no ecosystem and it is these types of critical processes that ecosystem ecologists want to learn more about in short ecosystem ecologists are really important for helping us understand how things like climate change deforestation or pollution are going to affect the environment at a fundamental level they

9:14 can also provide us with guidance on how we can adapt to some of these changes or ideally prevent them last but not least there is global ecology Global ecology is the study of the planet as one single ecosystem they study the interactions between species and life-sustaining processes on the land in the ocean and in the atmosphere at planetary scales scientists who study Global ecology want to know how things like population increase or pollution are going to affect processes on our planet not in one particular habitat or one particular ecosystem but for the planet as a whole for example a global ecologist might study how changes in the rainforest and the Arctic impact one another they might

9:59 also study Global Trends in deforestation and how this is impacting climate change now global ecology as a field of research has existed for quite a while but it's only been in the last few decades where we've really seen it grow and this is because of all of the cool technology that we've invented like GPS and satellites that let us measure the environment at a planetary level Global ecology is a really important area of study because it helps us understand how big changes to our world like building cities mining for resources or creating large Farms affects us at a really large scale Global ecology perhaps more than any other branch of ecology has helped us understand how we have collectively changed our world forever and that's a

10:46 pretty cool type of research well there you have it those are some of the main types of ecology that are out there and what you could specialize in if you want to be an ecologist let me know in the comments below did any of this get you interested in spark your career audacity to know more about ecology are there other types of ecology you want to learn about and as always if you enjoyed this video please don't forget to like share and subscribe and of course hit that Bell so you can get notified for my next video all about ecology [Music]