Introduction of Ecology

Date:12,27,2013Views:717

Overview

Ecology was born in the 19th century, the main task of this discipline is to research on the biological mutual relationship between the organisms and their living environment, and focuses on the influence of environment on organisms, the adaptation to the environment of organisms and the law of cooperative coevolution, the core theory of the discipline is that there exists a relationship of interdependence, mutual restriction, co-evolutionary between any organism in nature and its surrounding environment, and forming various ecosystems with  unity of structure and function. As for humans, these ecosystems all have service function. The basic theory of ecology often varies with different levels of life, from the systematic level, the general theory is mainly based on theories like the allelopathy theory, open system theory, the hierarchical system theory, ecological balance and tolerance limit theory and so on. At present, the ecology is still in the construction and development of the new theory, such as the stability of biodiversity and ecosystem theory, the metapopulation theory and the theory of material multilevel utilization are all of important guiding significance for these disciplines and the related disciplines, it has become an important theoretical base for many new-rising disciplines. Therefore, the theoretical basis of ecology has outstanding feature of the evolutionary view, the overall view and the system view.

 

As an experimental science, the research methods of ecology mainly include three categories, the first is the method of observation and experiment, including visual description, investigation and analysis, positioning monitoring method, mathematical statistics and single experiment, etc; The second is the method of logical thinking and abstract method, this is research method for many natural science; The third is simulation method (model), which is one of the important methods for processing nonlinear system and complex systems, the complexity and uncertainty of ecological system is its remarkable feature, so the method become an important part of ecology research. The research means and methods of modern ecology has made a great progress, the micro-scale and mesoscale researches all have advanced equipment, and the large-scale researches have support of synthesis techniques such as 3S technique. It has the characteristics of "Theory-loadenness of Observations” on the methodology.

 

Direction

Ecology as a primary subject consists of ecological science, ecological engineering and technology, ecological planning and management.

 

● Ecological Science

1. Theoretical Ecology: It explores the interactions, adaptive evolution and collaborative development rule between organisms and the environment mainly from different scales of population, community, ecosystem, landscape and global scale.

2. Environmental Ecology: It researches on the internal change mechanisms and laws of ecosystem under human disturbance, and the recovery, reconstruction and conservation of the damaged ecosystem.

3. Pollution Ecology: It researches on the migration, transformation and end-result behaviors of pollutants in the ecological system and its harm to bio-system and the risk assessment and prevention countermeasures.

 

● Ecological engineering and technology

4. Applied Ecology: It researches on system design, promotion and transformation ways of industries such as agricultural and forestry using the ecology principle and systems engineering method; the structure and function of each subsystem in watershed scale, ecological security maintenance and scientific management of major projects; regional ecological construction technology.

5. Industrial Ecology: It studies on the relationship between industrial system and natural ecological system, the industrial metabolism process simulation and improvement, the ecological efficiency of industrial system and the life cycle assessment of products as well as the policy and technology in the design for environmental.

6. Restoration Ecology: It researches on the theory and technology of ecological restoration, including characteristics of ecological system (stability, diversity, etc.) and the relation between resilience and restoring forces of the system, structure optimization design of degraded ecosystem restoration and reconstruction and the implementation technology of the restoration engineering.

 

● Ecological planning and management

7. Ecological planning: It studies on the ecological carrying capacity and ecological suitability analysis of the ecological elements, the ecological function zoning and land use overall arrangement; the adjustment plan of industrial structure and distribution; the support conditions for the implementation of ecological planning, etc.

8. Ecological Economics: It researches on ecological economic theory and application, ecological economic circulation, ecological value and benefits of resources and the management, control and evaluation of all kinds of economic system, etc.

9. Social Ecology: It studies the relationship between human social system and the nature, the scientific development of social eco-system as well as the combination, optimization, and social ecological balance and regulation of each element of social ecosystem, etc.