Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The science of the relationships between organisms and their environments.
- noun The relationship between organisms and their environment.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In biology, the science of animal and vegetable economy; the study of the phenomena of the life-history of organisms, in their individual and reciprocal relations; the doctrine of the laws of animal and vegetable activities, as manifested in their modes of life. Thus, parasitism, socialism, and nest-building are prominent in the scope of œcology.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Biol.) the branch of biology concerned with the various relations of animals and plants to one another and to their surrounding environment.
- noun (Biol.) The various relations of animals and plants to one another and to the outer world; -- now more commonly spelled
ecology .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The branch of
biology dealing with the relationships oforganisms with theirenvironment and with each other.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms and their environment
- noun the environment as it relates to living organisms
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ecology.
Examples
-
The word ecology comes from the Greek words oikos and logos, and literally means "study of the home."
-
He reminds us that the first part of the word "ecology" derives from the Greek word for house.
Remarks On Global Climate Change ITY National Archives 1997
-
Since then we've added content in ecology; in a few weeks we're going to launch a new cell biology module, and over the next year we're planning to expand across the remaining life sciences.
BP fires someone you never heard of Joel Achenbach 2010
-
Diversity of the cultural ecology is a desirable state of affairs, especially in opposition to the accelerating trend toward the uniform digitalization of all sensory experience, wherein an electronic “reader” stands between experience and observation, and all manifestation is encoded identically …
-
Well, she got an NSF fellowship that sent graduate students in ecology and conservation biology to Minnesota's metropolitan schools.
-
Well, she got an NSF fellowship that sent graduate students in ecology and conservation biology to Minnesota's metropolitan schools.
-
"It's really counterintuitive," said University of Wisconsin ecology professor Monica Turner, co-author of a paper that has been accepted for publication in Ecological Monographs.
Study: Beetle invasions dampen, not intensify, wildfire risk Bettina Boxall 2010
-
Kirk Prindle has actual professional qualifications in ecology and conservation.
-
Historically and psychologically, this close connection to ecology is understandable.
The German Ecological-Industrial Complex Malte Lehming 2010
-
Diversity of the cultural ecology is a desirable state of affairs, especially in opposition to the accelerating trend toward the uniform digitalization of all sensory experience, wherein an electronic “reader” stands between experience and observation, and all manifestation is encoded identically …
Archive 2009-08-01 2009
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.