Ecology

Definitions

Ernst Haeckel (1869) coined the word ecology and defined it as the total relations of the animal
to both its organic and inorganic environment.

Charles Elton (1927) in his pioneering book Animal Ecology defined ecology as the scientific
natural history

Eugene Odum (1963) defined ecology as the study of the structure and function of nature.

Andrewartha (1961) defined ecology as the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of
organisms.

Krebs (1972) modified the definition as follows: Ecology is the scientific study of the
interactions that determine the distribution and abundance of organisms.

History of ecology

 Herodotus and Plato in 4th century BC gave the concept which is now known as ‘balance
of nature’. They explained that the number of every species remain constant. Extinction
would never occur as it would affect the balance and harmony of nature. Outbreaks of
some populations might occur which are divine intervention for punishment of evil-doers.

 In 4th century BC, Aristotle explained the plagues of locust and field mice in in his
Historia Animalium He said that the reproductive rate of field mice is higher than that
could be reduced by its predators and that nothing succeeded in reducing mouse plagues
except rains.

 Graunt (1662) described human population in quantitative terms such as birth rate, death
rate, age structure and sex ratio and is called as the father of demography.

 Buffon in his Natural History (1756) discussed many of our modern ecological problems.
He also explained that plague populations of field mice are checked by diseases and
scarcity of food.

 Malthus (1798) published his controversial ‘Essay on Population’ in which he claimed

that organisms increase in number geometrically while food supply increases
arithmetically.

 Farr (1843) discovered that there was a relation between the density of population and
death rate (Farr’s rule), such that motrality increased as the sixth root of density.
  During most of this time the philosophical background had not changed from the idea of
harmony of nature of Plato’s day. In late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, two
ideas gained support

o That many species had become extinct

o Competition caused by population pressure is important.

o Hence balance of nature was replaced by natural selection and struggle for
existence.

o The works of Malthus, Lyell, Specer and Darwin in nineteenth century led to
these findings.

 Many developments in ecology came from the applied fields of agriculture, fisheries and
medicine. Work on insect pests, particularly insect predation and parasitism of crops has
been one important source of ideas.

 Ross (1908 and 1911) described in mathematical terms the propagation of malaria, which
is transmitted by mosquitoes.

 Production ecology had its beginnings in eighteenth century when Richard Bradley
proposed methods of maximizing agricultural yields for vineyards, trees, poultry, rabbits
and fish.

 Community ecology was first studied by Edward Forbes in 1844 and later by Karl
Mobius 1877 who explained community as biocoenosis.

 S.A.Forbes gave a classical paper on “The Lake of a Microcosm’ in which he discussed

community ecology.

 In 1899 H.C.Cowles described plant succession on the sand dunes at the southern end of
Lake Michigan.

 Hence by 1900 ecology became a full-fledged science – with recognition of problems in

populations and communities.

 The roots of ecology lies in natural history, human demography and applied problems in
agriculture.

Distribution and abundance

The basic problem of ecology is to determine the causes of the distribution and abundance of
organisms. Every organism lives in a matrix of space and time that can be considered as a unit.
Andrewartha and Birch (1954) observed that distribution and abundance are reverse sides of the
same coin.

Limit of distribution = Contour of zero abundance

No pop

High pop Low pop

Med pop

Distribution is a facet of abundance. Thus the factors that affect the distribution of a species may
also affect its abundance.

The problems of distribution and abundance can be analysed at the level of population or at the
level of community. The complexity of analysis may increase as more and more species are
considered in a community.

Levels of organization or integration

Biosphere
*Ecosystems
*Communities
*Populations
Organisms Decreasing scientific
Organ systems understanding
Organs
Tissues
Cells
Subcellular organelles
Molecules

In ecology we are dealing primarily with three levels of integration shown with stars. –
Ecosystem, Community and population. Each level of integration involves a separate and distinct
series of attributes and problems. For example, a population has a density that cannot be
attributed to an individual organism. A community has a species diversity which cannot be
applied to a population.

Ecology has been approached on three broad fronts, the mathematical, the laboratory and the
field which are inter-related. Mathematical predictions are used to understand the abundance and
distribution of organisms in field.
Some authors divide ecology into autecology, the study of individual organism in relation to its
environment, and synecology, the study of groups of organisms in relation to their environment.
Synecology may be further divided into population, community and ecosystem ecology.

Ecologists suggest that the ecosystem is the basic unit of ecology (Tansley, 1935; Rowe, 1961).
Pedigo (1990) states that agro-ecosystem is the basic unit in the study of insect pest
management.
Abundance and diversity of insects

More than 85% of the species in Animal Kingdom are insects. More than 9lakh insect species
have been described so for .Even in a single species of locust, a swarm comprises up to 109
individuals. The diversity of insects is large and they thrive under varied conditions. Insects date
back to 350 million years ago compared to just 1 million years for humans.

The causes for abundance of insects include

1. Capacity for flight

2. More adaptability and diversity.

Live in conditions of -500C to +400C,

Insects survive in petroleum wells, salt take and on every plant, animals

and dead materials

3. Small size

4. Presence of exoskeleton

5. Resistance to desiccation

6. Tracheal system of respiration

7. Higher reproductive potential and short life cycle.

High survival, special types of reproduction.

8. Complete metamorphosis to tide over different conditions and utilite

different foods.

9. Presence of defense mechanisms

10. Hexapod locomotion

Factors limiting insect population

The environmental factors that influence the growth, survival, distribution, abundance and
behavior of organisms one of two basic types

a) Nonliving or abiotic environmental factors and

 b) Living or biotic environmental factors

Liebig’s law of the minimum

An organism is subjected to the influence of all factors in its immediate surroundings.

However some factors exert more influence than others.

German biologist Justus Liebig in 1840 stated that “growth is dependent on the amount of
food stuff (or inorganic nutrients) that is present in minimum quantity”. This statement has come
to be known as Liebig’s law of the minimum.

Later in 1905, F.F.Blackman, a British physiologist expanded the concept to include a

wide spectrum of physical factors as temperature, rainfall, etc., which is known as the law of the
limiting factors.

Blackman found that there are 3 cardinal points for any environment factor that affects the
various function of organisms.

i) The minimal condition below which the phenomenon ceases to occur

ii) The optimal condition at which it is exhibited to its highest observed degree

iii) The maximal condition above which it ceases again

Shelford’s Law of Toleration or Tolerance

According to American ecologist, Victor E. Shelford (1913) organisms show a range of

tolerance with respect to an environment factor; there is a lower limit of tolerance below which
the organism fails to, survive and there is an upper tolerance limit beyond which the organism
does not survive. The survival, growth and distribution of organisms are maximum at optimal
conditions of the factor concerned.

A given species may have a wide tolerance for one factor and narrow tolerance for
another.

Prefix Eury is applied to describe wide tolerance to a factor.

Steno is applied to describe narrow tolerance to a factor.

Eury thermal – Wide tolerance to temp.

Steno thermal – Narrow tolerance to temp.

 Eury haline, Steno haline – to salinity etc.,

Some subsidiary principles of law of tolerance are as follows.

 A given species may have wide tolerance to temperature but narrow tolerance to salt
(Eurythermal but Sterohaline) and so on.

 Organisms with wide tolerance to many factors are likely to be very widely
distributed.

 When conditions are not optimum with one ecological factor, the limits of tolerance
may be reduced to other ecological factors. Eg. When soil potassium is limiting,
tolerance to insect damage is reduced.

 Animals are not actually living at optimum range of a physical factor due to
population interactions.

 The period of reproduction is usually a critical period when environmental factors

are most likely to be limiting. Age, season and physiological, behavioral state affects
tolerance. (eg) pupal stage more tolerant, young larva less tolerant.

 Organisms do not live as slaves to physical environment, but adapt themselves to

reduce the effect of physical limiting factors – known as factor compensation.
  Species with wide geographical ranges develop locally adapted populations called
ecotypes that have optima and limits of tolerances adjusted to local conditions. They
also get genetically fixed.

Physical factors of importance as limiting factors

1. Temperature: Temperature is the most important and easily measurable limiting

factor. Life stages of insects develop at a faster rate at higher temperature than at
lower temperature within the tolerable limits.

2. Radiation (Light): Light is the ultimate source of energy. The quality, intensity and
duration of light are ecologically important parameters.

3. Water: A physiological necessity for all protoplasm, water is a limiting factor in land
environments. Rainfall, humidity, the evaporating power of the air, and available
water supply are principal factors.

4. Atmospheric gases: The composition of atmospheric gases namely CO2 (0.03%) and
O2 (21%) play a significant role in plants and animals. Variations in these levels
cause variation in performance.

5. Macro and Micronutrients: Dissolved salts vital to life are known as Biogenic salts.
Nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulphur are important
biogenic salts and their short supply can cause limitations to growth of organisms.

6. Currents and Pressures: Currents in water greatly influence concentration of gases

and nutrients and act as limiting factor. On land, wind exerts effect on activities and
distribution of organisms.

7. Soil: Soil is also term the pedosphere. The texture and porosity of soil plays a major
role in availability of nutrients to plants and animals.

Ecological indicators: Just as we can determine precisely what kinds of organisms

can live in a given set of conditions, it is also possible to predict the physical
environment from the organisms. Such organisms which help to predict the physical
environment are called ecological indicators. Eg. Selenium indicating plant,
Astragalus is useful to locate selenium and uranium deposits.