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Population ecology
*** Shopping-Tip: Population ecology
'''Population ecology''' is a major subfield of
ecology—one that deals with the dynamics of
species populations and how these populations interact with
the environment. The older term, '''autecology''' refers to the roughly same field of study, coming from the division of ecology into ''autecology''—the study of individual species in relation to the environment—and '''
Community ecology synecology'''—the study of groups of organisms in relation to the environmnent—or ''community ecology''. Odum (1959, p. 8) considered that synecology should be divided into ''population ecology'', ''community ecology'', and ''ecosystem ecology'', defining ''autecology'' as essentially "species ecology." However, biologists have for some time recognized that the more significant level of organization of a species is a population, because at this level the species gene pool is most coherent. In fact, Odum regarded "autecology" as no longer a "present tendency" in ecology (i.e., an archaic term), although included "species ecology"—studies emphasizing life history and behaviour as adaptations to the environment of individual organisms or species—as one of four sub-divisions of ecology.
The development of the field of population ecology owes much to the science of
demography and the use of
actuary actuarial life tables. Population ecology has also played an important role in the development of the field of
conservation biology especially in the development of
population viability analysis (PVA) which makes it possible to predict the long-term probability of a species persisting in a given habitat patch (''e.g.'', a national park). While essentially a subfield of
biology, population ecology provides many interesting problems for
mathematics mathematicians and
statistics statisticians, which work mainly in the study of
population dynamics.
See also
*
Malthusian growth model
*
population dynamics
*
population genetics
*
List_of_publications_in_biology#Population biology Important publications in autecology
References
* Odum, E. P. 1959. ''Fundamentals of ecology''. W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia and London. 546 p.
Category: Ecology
Category: Population
ar:علم البيئة التجمعي
de:Demökologie
eo:AÅtoekologio
he:×?וט×?קולוגיה
ru:Ð?утоÑ?кологиÑ?
