What is Ecology and Various Ways to Protect it?
Proper understanding of how we can protect the ecology
Various ways to protect Ecology:
Ecology is the branch of biology that studies organism, environment, and how it interacts with each other.
It includes two components that are biotic and abiotic.
- Biotic components include any living organism that affects another organism or shapes the ecosystem—for example, bacteria, animals, birds, fungi, plants, etc.
- Abiotic components include non-living chemical or physical parts of the environment that affect the living organism. The functioning of the ecosystem examples of abiotic components is sunlight, soil, air, moisture minerals, and more.
Ecologists are the person who studies interactions of organisms with each other and their environment, for example, an ecologist may study the interaction of the plant and animals in a rainforest and bacteria’s and various other organisms.
The term ecology was first coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, and artist who discovered, described, and named thousands of new species.
Now let’s head over to what are the different types of ecology.
Types of Ecology
- Ecosystem ecology– It is the branch of ecology that includes studying the entire ecosystem, both living and nonliving.
- Landscape ecology- It is the study of the part of human impacts on landscape structures and functions.
- Global ecology- This comprises the study of large-scale interactions and their influence on our mother planet.
- Population ecology- It studies the factor that changes the genetic and size of the organisms’ entire population.
- Molecular ecology- This type of ecology studies the production of the proteins and how these proteins affect all organisms and their environment; all these things take place at a molecular level. That’s why it has been named molecular ecology.
- Organismal ecology- As you may have got a glimpse of it by its name, organismal ecology studies the individual organism’s behavior, physiology, and various other things related to their environment.
- Community ecology- It mainly focuses on how the community structure is changed by interacting with living organisms.
Now it is clear enough what ecology is!! So now, let us jump to a few examples of it.
Examples of Ecology-
- Niche Construction- It is an excellent example of ecology that mainly focuses on how the organisms can adjust the environment for their benefits and also for the ultimate benefits of other living organisms.
- Human Ecology- It is the second and the most suitable example of the ecology that focuses on the relationship between humans and the environment and how humans have a significant impact on their environment.
It is now clear that the study of ecology is important for a better understanding of how each and everything in this environment has a significant impact on each other and further the structure of the whole relationship between them.
Hence it is crucial to have some knowledge of the various ways to protect the ecosystem.
How Can We Protect the Ecology?
By creating awareness among the people
We must carry out some educational campaigns to create awareness among the people.
The campaigns must be carried out in such a way that every person, whether literate or illiterate, can easily understand and spread the same message further to other people.
Moreover, these types of campaigns will make people realize that they must do something for the future generation as well and just not think of the present scenario only.
Hence this way, the message will be spread among the people, and they will become more environmentally concerned and will understand the ecology.
Protection of animals and endangered species
By studying ecology, we are extremely clear that every organism is interdependent, and everyone affects the other living being, etc.
So, we must understand that every animal is essential for the environment, and every animal needs to be protected.
Further, we must take special care of the endangered species; otherwise, they will become extinct and will harm the ecosystem.
Management of natural resources
Perhaps this is the most crucial way as this can have a drastic change over the environment and ecology as well.
We should never forget the concept of sustainable development. And we should use natural resources in such a way that it can help our future generation as well.
By proper forest management also we can transform our mother earth to a better place to live.
We can also take small steps, such as planting at least 5 to 6 plants in our home or parks. And just by this small step, the whole environment can be transformed.
Conserving and improving our environment
In this, we must try our best to conserve our environment as much as we can.
Today it is in the hand of human beings only, which can easily help our environment to improve with constant efforts.
By improvement, we mean steps like we must try our best to improve the water quality by reducing water pollution.
Similarly, we can reduce the air, land, and various other pollutions by planting more trees. Further, if we decline fertilizers and different other methods, it will also be helpful.
Restoration of the environment
We can see clear indications that the environment needs to be restored.
It could be made clear by this example- We can try to restore the wetlands by using them for filtration of impurities and toxicants instead of using them for the water treatment plants only as it will enormously help our ecosystem. Similarly, we can restore various other natural things of the environment, so our ecosystem gets transformed.
Considering it as our duty.
This is the ultimate and the most important thing that each of us must follow and take it seriously.
We must make our environment as our responsibility. Further, we shouldn’t think that it is a work of only governments, ecologists, and various other NGOs and institutions.
If everyone starts thinking this way and tries their best that they will do each possible thing for the betterment of the environment, the ecology of our whole world will be transformed.
Hope Now you will take some immediate steps to improve our environment.
“The earth is what we have all in common” –Wendell Berry.