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The science of the interactions of living organisms and their communities with each other and with the environment. The term was first proposed by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel.

The modern meaning of the concept ecology  has a broader significance than in the first decades of the development of this science. Currently, environmental issues are most often mistakenly understood, first of all, as environmental issues. In many ways, this shift in meaning occurred due to the increasingly tangible consequences of the human influence on the environment, but it is necessary to separate the concepts ecological  (“Relating to the science of ecology”) and environmental(“Environmental”). Universal attention to ecology entailed the expansion of the area of \u200b\u200bknowledge (exclusively biological), originally quite clearly defined by Ernst Haeckel, to other natural sciences and even the humanities.

The classic definition of ecology: a science that studies the relationship between animate and inanimate nature.

Here are some possible definitions of ecology science:

• Ecology is the knowledge of the economy of nature, the simultaneous study of all the relationships of living things with organic and inorganic components of the environment ... In short, ecology is a science that studies all the complex relationships in nature that Darwin sees as the conditions for the struggle for existence.
• Ecology is a biological science that studies the structure and functioning of systems of the supraorganism level (population, community, ecosystem) in space and time, in natural and human-modified conditions.
• Ecology is the science of the environment and the processes occurring in it.

Territory as the main environmental resource

Earth is the most important natural resource. This resource, which provides the possibility of the existence of life, is a factor of its diversity and spatial basis. The paramount importance of land resources in the formation of other natural environments, such as the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, has long been scientifically proven, but in most cases is not taken for granted.

According to Art. 4 of federal law No. 7-FZ "On Environmental Protection", land is subject to protection from pollution, depletion, degradation, damage, destruction and other negative impacts of economic and other activities.

In the global significance, the main components of terrestrial nature include the earth, subsoil, soils, surface and groundwater, atmospheric air, flora, fauna and other organisms, as well as the ozone layer of the atmosphere, which together provide favorable conditions for the existence of life on Earth. Natural resources are also natural forces and phenomena, including gravity, radiation, vibrations, wind, currents, as well as natural conditions.

20. Justification of the integrating position of anthropoecology in the system of knowledge about a person

Anthropoecology

("anthropos" (Greek) - "man"; "ecology" (Greek) - "the doctrine of the home")

- a) the doctrine of the relationship and interdependence of a person with the world around him.

The terms "human ecology" and "anthropology" should be distinguished. Human ecology is the doctrine of the preservation and development of human health based on identifying the dependence of the human body, its psyche on the state of the natural and social environment.

Anthropology is the doctrine of the relationship and interdependence of man with the world around him: from nature, society and culture to the biosphere and the universe as a whole.

Human ecology is turned primarily inward, anthropology is turned outward, human ecology is close to valeology, anthropology focuses on the spiritual component of a person’s relationship with everything.

Man has always sought to live in harmony and harmony with his surrounding nature, in friendship and peace with other people. These aspirations found their highest expression in almost all religions of the world, in the works of great writers, composers, and artists. In recent decades, these natural aspirations of mankind have been recorded in many documents of international organizations - the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, etc.

The immediate tasks of applied anthropoecological research, i.e. of practical importance may also be the following:

1. The study of human communities in a specific environmental situation (assessment of biological characteristics, types of metabolism, genetic characteristics, processes of growth and development, etc.).

2. The study of the processes of human growth and development in various environmental conditions (for example, differentiation according to various biological characteristics of residents of tropical and extratropical latitudes).

3. The study of the population of the city as an anthropogenic ecological niche (for example, the phenomenon of acceleration, which is typical mainly for citizens). Based on the results of studies of the urban population, systems of possible changes in the physical appearance of a person can be developed.

4. Global modeling of anthropoecological relationships. In this case, the focus of the study is the human population with its characteristic complex of adaptive morphophysiological and genetic traits, as well as the system of its relations with climatic and geochemical factors.

Knowledge of the general problems of human ecology is necessary for representatives of various fields of science and practice - designers of new cities (urban planning), hygienists, environmental lawyers, environmental specialists, heads of various departments in local and regional governments, representatives of the pedagogical profession, social and extreme psychologists, ecopsychologists. Anthropoecological knowledge is necessary for the environmental well-being of the population of our country and its individual regions, in the daily activities of various ministries, departments, institutions in need of anthropoecological information.

21. The reasons that allowed a person to change the strategy of changing the population size.

the current almost limitless power of mankind is finite in time.

Population decline can occur for several reasons. First, hunger caused by reduced food resources can be a decisive factor. This mechanism is well known to mankind, and now it "works" in some countries. On the planet, only 500 million people have plenty of nutritious foods, and 2 billion people eat poorly and starve. 20 million die of hunger annually. The number of humanity is increasing by 200 million a year. If the number of people dying of hunger increases by an order of magnitude, population growth will stop, and if even more, it will begin to decline. At the same time, people will die “somewhere far and infrequently,” so the wider community could even pretend not to notice anything. This is the most “natural” version of collapse.

The second option is non-biological: one of the nuclear countries will try to capture the remnants of non-renewable resources, while others will start a nuclear war with it. It was at the critical moment of the demographic explosion that mankind accumulated atomic weapons in such quantity that is enough to bring themselves to an arbitrarily small number at any moment. Whether this is a coincidence or a ruthless manifestation of certain laws of evolution, let philosophers guess. There is hope that, no matter how primitive the thinking of politicians, they still will not allow the formulation of this scenario.

The third option is purely political: countries deliberately introduce birth control and gradually reduce the population. This path, from the point of view of a biologist, may turn out to be a little effective. The fact is that human fertility is determined by population biological mechanisms, and therefore, so far all attempts to stimulate the state or limit birth rates have been unsuccessful, but have caused very strong protest from people. We will come back to this issue later. Here we note that it is a completely different matter if the birth rate declined without coercion, spontaneously, based on the actions of population mechanisms.

But this would be the fourth form of collapse, the mildest and therefore the most desirable. After all, the biosphere gives us increasingly strong signals that we have dangerously exceeded our numbers.

At the beginning of the XX century. a new biological science has formed - ecology. Translated from Greek - it is "the science of habitat."

Ecology- This is the science of the relationship of organisms, communities between themselves and with the environment.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe existence of an interconnection between living beings among themselves and with their environment has existed in biology for a long time. In zoological and botanical works, from time immemorial, in addition to describing the structure of animals and plants, the conditions of their existence were described.

The term "ecology" was introduced into science in 1866 by the prominent German biologist E. Haeckel. However, only in the 20th century, mainly in its second half, purely environmental studies gained enormous scope. And this, of course, is no accident.

The development of human society at the end of the second millennium is characterized by an intensive increase in the population, and, consequently, an increase in the needs of mankind for food and raw materials. In the conditions of scientific and technological progress, the impact of people on nature has acquired a truly planetary character. Huge spaces on Earth underwent radical transformations as a result of human activities. This was expressed in the depletion of natural resources, and in the destruction of natural complexes, and in environmental pollution.

Man entered into an acute conflict with nature, the deepening of which threatens a global environmental catastrophe. As a result, many species of organisms can die, and especially the person himself. To prevent this, we need to rethink our relationship with the outside world. The existence and development of human society should be based on a deep understanding of the laws of existence and development of wildlife, natural complexes and systems.

The scientific basis for solving the above problems is ecology. Today, it is rapidly accumulating data and exerting an ever-increasing influence on natural science, science in general, as well as on all spheres of human activity - agriculture, industry, economics and politics, education, healthcare and culture. Only on the basis of environmental knowledge can an effective environmental protection system and rational nature management be built.

The tasks of ecology as a science:

1) the study of the relationship of organisms and their populations with the environment;

2) the study of the effects of the environment on the structure, vital activity and behavior of organisms;

3) the establishment of a relationship between the environment and population;

4) study of the relationship between populations of different species;

5) the study of the struggle for existence and the direction of natural selection in the population.

Human ecology- A comprehensive science that studies the laws of human relations with the environment, population issues, the preservation and development of health, and the improvement of the physical and mental capabilities of a person.

The human environment compared with the environment of other living creatures is a very complex interweaving of interacting natural and anthropogenic factors, and this set differs sharply in different places.

Man has 3 habitats:

1) natural;

2) social;

3) technogenic. The criterion for the quality of the human environment is its state

health.

Unlike all other creatures, man has a dual nature from the point of view of ecology: on the one hand, man is the object of various environmental factors (sunlight, other creatures), and on the other hand, man himself is an environmental (anthropogenic) factor.

Ecology is a science that studies the laws of nature, the interaction of living organisms with the environment, the foundations of which were laid by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. However, people were interested in the secrets of nature since ancient times, had a careful relationship to it. There are hundreds of concepts of the term “ecology”; at different times, scientists gave their definitions of ecology. The word itself consists of two particles, from Greek "oikos" is translated as a house, and "logos" - as a doctrine.

With the development of technological progress, the environment began to deteriorate, which attracted the attention of the world community. People noticed that the air became polluted, species of animals and plants disappear, water in the rivers worsens. These and many other phenomena were given the name -.

Global environmental issues

Most environmental problems from local to global. Changing a small ecosystem at a specific point in the world can affect the ecology of the entire planet. For example, a change in the ocean currents of the Gulf Stream will lead to major climatic changes and cooling in Europe and North America.

Today, scientists count dozens of global environmental issues. Here are just the most relevant of them that threaten life on the planet:

• - changing of the climate;
• - depletion of fresh water;
• - reduction of populations and extinction of species and;
• - depletion of minerals;

This is not the whole list of global problems. Let's just say that environmental problems that can be equated with a disaster are pollution of the biosphere and. Every year, air temperature rises by +2 degrees Celsius. The reason for this is greenhouse gases. A world conference on environmental issues was held in Paris, at which many countries of the world pledged to reduce gas emissions. As a result of the high concentration of gases, ice melts at the poles, the water level rises, which subsequently threatens flooding of the islands and coasts of the continents. To prevent an impending catastrophe, it is necessary to work out joint actions and carry out activities that will help slow down and stop the global warming process.

Subject of environmental studies

At the moment, there are several sections of ecology:

• - general ecology;
• - bioecology;

Each section of ecology has its own subject of study. The most popular is general ecology. She studies the surrounding world, which consists of ecosystems, their individual components - and relief, soil, flora and fauna.

The importance of ecology for every person

Caring for the environment has become a fashionable activity today; the eco label is used everywhere. But many of us do not even realize the depth of all the problems. Of course, it is good that the vast humanity of people has become indifferent to the life of our planet. However, it is worthwhile to realize that the state of the environment depends on each person.

Any inhabitant of the planet can perform simple actions daily, which will help to improve the ecology. For example, you can recycle paper and reduce the use of water, save energy and throw garbage in the bin, grow plants and use reusable items. The more people who follow these rules, the more likely they will be to save our planet.

Ecological problems  to one degree or another, mankind resolved spontaneously throughout natural history. Man early understood that it is necessary to use natural resources wisely, without violating the productive physical and biological natural mechanisms and thereby preserving the basis of his existence.

The roots of environmental knowledge go back to antiquity. The cave paintings made by primitive people indicate that a person’s interest in the world was far from simple curiosity.

The idea of \u200b\u200bprotecting nature and, in particular, the beauty of natural forests was close to the inhabitants of ancient Greece. So, the ancient Greek poet Horace, in a letter to patrician Fusku Avidia, says: “There are magnificent colonnades in your gardens. Aren't they built to lock groves and forests? The nature that you drive away with the blows of the ax, which you drive at the door of your houses, fortunately, comes back through the window. "

Ancient Greek thinkers passed the baton to Roman scientists, and they "threw a bridge" in the Renaissance.

The great geographical discoveries of the Renaissance served as an impetus for the development of environmental management. Scientists and travelers not only described the external and internal structure of plants, but also reported information about their dependence on the conditions of growth or cultivation. The description of the animals was accompanied by information about their habits and habitats.

A great contribution to the formation of environmental knowledge was made by the Swedish natural scientist K. Linney (1707-1778). His works “Saving of Nature" and "The Social Structure of Nature" have not lost their relevance. By “economy”, the scientist understood the relationship of all natural bodies, compared nature with the human community, living according to certain laws.

The French nature researcher J. Buffon (1707-1788) in 1749 made a daring attempt for that time to present the development of the Earth, the animal world and man as a single evolutionary series. In his later works, the leading importance of climatic factors in the ecology of organisms was emphasized.

Important observations that influenced the development of ecology were made by scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences during expeditionary studies conducted since the second half of the 18th century. Among the organizers and participants of these expeditions, S.P. Krasheninnikov (1711-1755), famous for his "Description of the land of Kamchatka", II. Lepekhin (1740-1802) - the author of "Day notes of the journey of the doctor and the Academy of Sciences of the adjunct Ivan Lepekhin to different provinces of the Russian state" in 4 volumes, academician P.S. Pallas (1741-1811), who prepared the capital work "Description of Russian-Asian Animals".

One of the founders of the evolutionary doctrine of Zh.B. Lamarck (1744-1829), who believed that the most important cause of adaptive changes in organisms, the evolution of plants and animals is the influence of external environmental conditions.

The founder of Russian ecology can be called professors of Moscow University K.F. Rudder (1814-1858). In his writings and public lectures, he strongly emphasized the need to study the evolution of living organisms, the development and structure of animals, depending on changes in their habitat. The scientist formulated the principle underlying all life sciences, the principle of the historical unity of the living organism and the environment.

Of great importance for the development of ecology were the works of the zoologist N.A. Severtsov (1827-1885). He was the first to attempt to classify animals by biological types (life forms).

The largest German scientist A. Humboldt (1769-1859) laid the foundations of a new science - biogeography (mainly plant geography). The founder of the doctrine of life forms, Humboldt studied in detail the main climates of the Northern Hemisphere and compiled a map of its isotherms. In addition, the researcher made a great contribution to the development of geophysics, volcanology, hydrography, studied the nature of the countries of Europe, Central and South America. In the “Cosmos” pile, Humboldt made an attempt to generalize the achievements of Earth sciences.

And yet, at the dawn of its development, ecology was engaged in a descriptive study of nature. Great researchers and naturalists of the XIX century. left descriptions full of lyricism and observation of natural phenomena. Suffice it to mention with interest the multivolume work of A. Brehm that is read today, “The Life of Animals”, the first volume of which appeared in 1863. French scientist J. Farb in 1870 published "Entomological Notes", which still amaze the accuracy of observations of the wonderful world of insects.

The formation of ecology as a science

A key moment in the development of environmental knowledge was the emergence of the term “ecology”. Happy birthday, or rather “baptism”, ecology as a science can be considered September 14, 1866, when the German biologist E. Haeckel (1834-1919) completed writing the fundamental work “General morphology of organisms”. When classifying sections of biology in one of the footnotes, Haeckel first used the word "ecology" (from the Greek. Oikos - home, dwelling, homeland, residence, abode and logos - word, teaching) in relation to scientific knowledge.

E. Haeckel gave the following definition of ecology as a science: “... the knowledge of the economy of nature, the simultaneous study of all relationships of living things with organic and inorganic components of the environment, including necessarily non-antagonistic and antagonistic relationships of animals and plants in contact with each other. In a word, ecology is a science that studies all the complex interactions and relationships in nature, considered by Darwin as the conditions for the struggle for existence. ” Haeckel attributed ecology to biological and environmental sciences, which are primarily interested in all aspects of the existence of living organisms: “By ecology we mean the science of economy, of the domestic life of animal organisms. She examines the general relations of animals to both their inorganic and organic environment, their friendly and hostile relations to other animals and plants with which they enter into direct and indirect contacts ... "

By the end of the XIX century. the term "ecology" began to use many biologists, not only in Germany but also in other countries. In 1868, in Russia, edited by II. Mechnikov came up with a summary of the work of E. Haeckel, "General Morphology", where the word "ecology" in Russian was first mentioned.

Ecology as a science arose in the middle of the XIX century. in the bowels of biological science, which by that time had become interested not only in the classification of all living things and the structure of organisms, but also in the reaction of animals and plants to living conditions.

A special role in the development of environmental ideas was played by the works of the great English scientist and natural scientist C. Darwin (1809-1882) - the founder of the doctrine of the evolution of the organic world. Darwin's conclusion about the constant struggle for existence inherent in all living things is one of the central problems of ecology.

If Haeckel can be considered the forefather of a new science, intuitively anticipating the importance and global nature of ecology, then Darwin laid its biological foundation - the foundation on which ecological knowledge was built. Initially, it had the practical purpose of regulating the number of economically important species of animals and changing natural communities (biocenoses) in a direction that is beneficial to humans.

In 1859, Darwin published the book “The Origin of Species by Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Breeds in the Struggle for Life,” which made a real revolution in biology.

An important step on the path of ecology to the study of integral natural complexes was the introduction in 1877 by the German hydrobiologist K. Mobius (1825-1908) of the concept of biocenosis. He formulated it in the book “Oysters and oyster farming”, where he described the complexes of bottom animals that form the so-called oyster banks. Mobius called such complexes biocenoses, referring to the associations of living organisms that correspond in composition, number of species and individuals to medium environmental conditions and in which organisms are interdependent and are preserved due to constant reproduction in certain places.

The merit of Mobius is that he managed to reveal many of the laws of the formation and development of natural natural communities (biocenoses). Thus, the foundations of an important area in ecology - biocenology - were laid.

Thus, K. Mobius was one of the first to apply a special approach to the study of wildlife, which today is called the systematic approach. This approach focuses the researcher on revealing the integral properties of objects and mechanisms that provide them, on identifying the diverse relationships in the biological system and developing an effective strategy for its study. In modern science, the systemic paradigm (the prevailing theoretical concept, the belief system) dominates, and in ecology, the systematic approach to the consideration of wildlife is the main one.

As a recognized independent scientific discipline, ecology took shape around 1900.

In the process of a detailed study of the environment, a special section of ecology arose - autoecology (from the Greek autos - itself) - the ecology of individual species, organisms, studying their relationship with the environment. Autoecology is of great practical importance, especially in the field of biological methods of plant pest control, research on disease vectors and their prevention.

However, each individual species, even when studied in conjunction with other species that have a direct effect on it, is just the smallest particle among thousands of the same species of plants, animals and microorganisms that live in the same zone. Awareness of this fact led to the appearance in the mid-20s. XX century synecology (from the Greek. sin - together), or biocenology, exploring the relationship of populations, communities and ecosystems with the environment. At the III International Botanical Congress in Brussels in 1910, synecology officially took shape as an integral part of ecology.

Gradually, environmental scientists moved from the stage of descriptive to the stage of understanding the collected facts. Intensive development was gained by experimental and theoretical ecology. It was in the 20-40s. XX century the heyday of theoretical ecology. The main tasks of studying populations and communities were formulated, mathematical models of population growth and their interactions were proposed, laboratory experiments were conducted to verify these models. Mathematical laws are established that describe the dynamics of populations of interacting groups of individuals.

In the same period, the first fundamental ecological concepts appeared, such as the “pyramid of numbers”, according to which the number of individuals decreases from plants (at the base of the pyramid) to herbivores and predators (at its top); "Power circuit"; "Pyramid of biomass."

From the very beginning, environmentalists tried to realize the subject of their activity as an integral discipline, designed to bring a variety of diverse facts into a coherent system, to reveal fairly general patterns, and most importantly, to explain and, if possible, make a forecast of various natural phenomena. At this stage in the development of ecology, there was an acute shortage of the basic unit of study.

An ecological system, or ecosystem, has become such a unit. The term “ecosystem” was proposed by the English ecologist A. Tensley in 1935. It can be defined as unity limited in time and space, a natural complex formed by living organisms (biocenosis) and their environment (inert, for example, atmosphere, or biocosal - soil, reservoir, etc.), interconnected by the exchange of substances and energy. - one of the basic concepts of ecology, applicable to objects of varying complexity and size.

An example of an ecosystem is a pond with plants, fish, invertebrates living in it, microorganisms, bottom sediments, with characteristic changes in temperature, the amount of oxygen dissolved in water, the composition of water, etc. An ecosystem is a forest with forest litter, soil, microorganisms, birds, herbivores and carnivorous mammals inhabiting it, with a characteristic distribution of temperature and humidity of air, light, soil water and other environmental factors, with its inherent metabolism and energy. Rotting stump with organisms living on it and in it and living conditions can also be considered as an ecosystem.

The work of the outstanding Russian geochemist V.I. Vernadsky (1863-1945). He studied the processes taking place in the biosphere, and developed a theory called biogeochemistry, which formed the basis of the modern doctrine of the biosphere. The biosphere is an area of \u200b\u200bactive life, covering the lower part of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the upper part of the lithosphere. In the biosphere, living organisms and their environment are organically connected and interact with each other, forming an integrated dynamic system.

The emergence and development of the doctrine of the biosphere has become a new milestone in natural science, the study of the interaction and relationship between inert and living nature, between man and the environment.

In 1926, V.I. Vernadsky published the work "Biosphere", which marked the birth of a new science of nature and the relationship of man to it. In this book, the biosphere is first shown as a single dynamic system, inhabited and controlled by life, living matter of the planet. In his work on the biosphere, the scientist argued that living matter in interaction with inert matter is part of the great mechanism of the earth’s crust, due to which various geochemical and biogenic processes, atom migrations occur, and their participation in geological and biological cycles takes place.

IN AND. Vernadsky established that the chemical state of the outer crust of our planet is completely influenced by life and is determined by living organisms, the activity of which is associated with the planetary process - the migration of chemical elements in the biosphere.

In the future, the scientist concludes that the biosphere is closely related to human activity, on which the preservation of the equilibrium of the composition of the biosphere depends. He introduces a new concept - the noosphere, i.e. “Thinking shell”, the sphere of the mind. Vernadsky wrote: “Humanity, taken as a whole, is being put into a powerful geological force. Before him, before his thought and work, the question arises of restructuring the biosphere in the interests of a free, thinking humanity as a whole. This is a new state of the biosphere, to which we are approaching without noticing it, and there is a noosphere. ”

The interconnections in wildlife that scientists have to deal with are extremely broad and diverse. Therefore, ideally, the ecologist should have truly encyclopedic knowledge, concentrated in many scientific and social disciplines. Successful solution of real environmental problems requires joint interdisciplinary work of research groups, each of which represents a different branch of science. That is why in the second half of the XX century. Ecology has developed ecological schools of botanists, zoologists, geobotanists, hydrobiologists, soil scientists, etc.

Modern ecology

The concept of "ecology" is currently gaining a global character, but environmental scientists themselves make different meanings in the definition of this term.

Some say that ecology is a branch of biology. Others claim that it is a biological science. Indeed, ecology as a science was formed on the basis of biology, but at present it is an independent, isolated science. Theorist of modern ecology N.F. Reimers pointed out: “Modern ecology is a biologized (as well as geographic, mathematical, etc.) biocentric science, but not biology. Its biological component is a look from the living to the environment and from this environment to the living. This viewpoint has dozens of sciences: anthropology, ethnography, medicine, etc. But ecology is characterized by a wide systemic intersectoral view. ”

The development of ecology has increased the theoretical and practical importance of Earth sciences such as meteorology, climatology, hydrology, glaciology, soil science, oceanology, geophysics, and geology. The role of geography is changing significantly, which now seeks not only to give a more complete and multifaceted picture of the appearance of the planet, but also to develop the scientific basis for its rational transformation, to form a progressive concept of environmental management.

However, the main thing is the integrating function of modern ecology, which has taken shape in a wide integrated industry that is engaged in research, applied activities and contributes to the development of new areas of the natural, technical and social sciences. Ecology stimulates the "interdisciplinarity" of scientific activity, orientes all sciences to solving a kind of "super-task" - the search for harmony between humanity and nature. In this regard, global ecology has creatively assimilated the most rational aspects of many sciences and scientific theories. Based on the evolutionary understanding of wildlife, modern ecology at the same time takes into account the specifics of an unprecedented in scale and nature of anthropogenic impact on the biosphere. This impact is largely due to the transition of the scientific and technological revolution to a higher stage of development, objectively requiring the comprehension of many of the contradictory processes and phenomena generated by it in nature and society and the weakening of the most dangerous of them.

One of the real contributions of ecology to the development of science as a whole can be considered the expansion of the framework for the use of a number of concepts and scientific concepts that were previously included in the arsenal of only certain rather narrow scientific disciplines.

Thus, on the one hand, it is recognized that ecology is a science, and on the other, it is emphasized that it is a combination of scientific disciplines. Indeed, ecology in one way or another affects almost all spheres of the vital activity of living organisms (and their aggregates) and humans. Ecology is a synthetic science.

At one of the forums, ecologists tried to officially determine what ecology is. Each offered his own definition. As a result, the following phrase was recorded in the minutes: “Ecology is what I do, and you don’t do it.”

The term “ecology” and the word “ecological” derived from it turned into the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries. in common, capacious words, covering and reflecting those global changes that have occurred not only in the human environment, but also in the relationships of people.

Summarizing, we can give the following definition of ecology: ecology is a science that studies the relationship of organisms with each other and with their natural environment, as well as exploring the structure and functioning of biological (body) systems of various levels. Superorganismal systems include populations, biocenoses, ecosystems, and the biosphere. They are also the subject of environmental studies.

Ecology can also be defined as the science of the “niches” of organisms in ecological systems.