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Looking around—that’s the first step in ecology. Your house, for instance, is an ideal place to start.
It’s perfect for a big mammal like you. Yet, it’s also home to spiders, insects, and maybe the occasional mouse. Just outside are birds, squirrels, frogs, grasses, trees, flowering plants, rocks, dirt, and even more insects. When you look around at living things and their environment, you are involved in the study of ecology.
◀ Ecology started as a branch of biology. One of the first people to write down natural history observations was an ancient Greek. Theophrastus (372–288 B.C.) was a pupil of Aristotle’s. Theophrastus wrote the most important scientific books about plants in ancient times. But German biologist Ernst von Haeckel (near left) made up the word ecology in 1866. He combined the Greek words oikos, meaning “place to live,” and logos, which means “the study of something.” The term wasn’t used much until the early 1900s.
Earth’s Ecological Levels
Ecologists study Earth’s environment at six different levels.
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What’s the difference between ecology and environment?
Most people use the word ecology interchangeably with environment, but they don’t mean the same thing. Ecology is the study of the environment.
