ECOLOGY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ecology mean? 

• ECOLOGY (noun)
  The noun ECOLOGY has 2 senses:

1. the environment as it relates to living organisms

2. the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms and their environment

  Familiarity information: ECOLOGY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ECOLOGY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The environment as it relates to living organisms

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

it changed the ecology of the island

Hypernyms ("ecology" is a kind of...):

environment (the totality of surrounding conditions)

Derivation:

ecologic; ecological (characterized by the interdependence of living organisms in an environment)

ecologist (a biologist who studies the relation between organisms and their environment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms and their environment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

bionomics; ecology; environmental science

Hypernyms ("ecology" is a kind of...):

biological science; biology (the science that studies living organisms)

Domain member category:

biotic community; community ((ecology) a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other)

association ((ecology) a group of organisms (plants and animals) that live together in a certain geographical region and constitute a community with a few dominant species)

food chain ((ecology) a community of organisms where each member is eaten in turn by another member)

food pyramid ((ecology) a hierarchy of food chains with the principal predator at the top; each level preys on the level below)

food cycle; food web ((ecology) a community of organisms where there are several interrelated food chains)

ecesis; establishment ((ecology) the process by which a plant or animal becomes established in a new habitat)

ecological succession; succession ((ecology) the gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established)

ecological niche; niche ((ecology) the status of an organism within its environment and community (affecting its survival as a species))

cosmopolitan; widely distributed (growing or occurring in many parts of the world)

endemic (native to or confined to a certain region)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ecology"):

palaeoecology; paleoecology (the branch of ecology that studies ancient ecology)

Derivation:

ecologic; ecological (of or relating to the science of ecology)

ecologist (a biologist who studies the relation between organisms and their environment)

Domain member category:

eutrophic ((ecology) of a lake or other body of water rich in nutrients and subject to eutrophication)

 Context examples 

Organic phosphates play important roles in biochemistry and biogeochemistry or ecology.

(Organic Phosphate, NCI Thesaurus)

A single drop of seawater can contain a wide representation of ocean microbes from around the world — revealing new insights into the ecology, evolution and biotechnology potential of the global microbiome.

(Study analyzing cells' blueprints reveals new patterns in the global distribution and diversity of ocean microbes, National Science Foundation)

According to scientists who pieced together a detailed picture of the climate and ecology more than 200 million years ago at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico, a site rich with fossil, the tropical climate swung wildly with extremes of drought and intense heat.

(Big dinosaurs steered clear of the tropics, NSF)

It looks like it was changes in the oceans, in the chemistry and in the ecology of the oceans, and so you had a long-term willowing away of these ichthyosaurs as they became less and less common, less and less diverse, until they trickled away to extinction, and then that is when groups like sharks and ultimately whales and dolphins moved on in," said the paleontologist.

(Sea Monster Swam Oceans 170 Million Years Ago, Voanews)

What’s remarkable about the honeyguide-human relationship is that it involves free-living wild animals whose interactions with humans have probably evolved through natural selection, probably over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, says Spottiswoode, a specialist in bird behavioural ecology in Africa.

(How humans and wild Honeyguide birds call each other to help, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Understanding the complex impacts of urbanization on biotic systems requires computational approaches that can integrate multiple sources of data on human activity, ecology and biodiversity, said Peter McCartney, a program director in NSF's Division of Biological Infrastructure.

(Urbanization delays spring plant growth in warm regions, National Science Foundation)