- Population ecology
Population ecology is a major sub-field of
ecology that deals with the dynamics ofspecies population s and how these populations interact with the environment.cite book | last =Odum | first =Eugene P. | authorlink =Eugene Odum | title =Fundamentals of Ecology | edition=Second edition| publisher =W. B. Saunders Co. | date =1959 | location =Philadelphia and London | pages =546 p | isbn = 0721669417/9780721669410|oclc = 554879]The older term, autecology (from Greek: αὐτο, "auto", "self"; οίκος, oikos, "household"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") 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 synecology—the study of groups of organisms in relation to the environment—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 behavior 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 actuariallife table s. Population ecology has also played an important role in the development of the field ofconservation biology especially in the development ofpopulation 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 mathematicians and statisticians, which work mainly in the study ofpopulation dynamics .Scientific literature
Scientific literature on population ecology can be found in "
The Journal of Animal Ecology ", "Oikos " and others.ee also
*
Density-dependent inhibition
*Genetic variation
*Irruptive growth
*Life table
*Malthusian growth model
*Metapopulation
*Population density
*Population distribution
*Population dynamics andpopulation growth
*Population genetics
*Population size
* Important publications in autecology
*Reproduction Bibliography
* cite book | last = Kareiva | first = Peter | authorlink = Peter Kereiva | editor = Roughgarden J., R.M. May and S. A. Levin | title = Perspectives in ecological theory | edition = | date = | year = 1989
month = | publisher = Princeton University Press| location = New Jersey | pages = 394 p | chapter = Renewing the Dialogue between Theory and Experiments in Population Ecology
*
*cite journal | last =Smith | first =Frederick E. | authorlink =Frederick E. Smith (ecologist)| title =Experimental methods in population dynamics: a critique | journal =Ecology | volume =33 | issue = | pages =441–450
date =1952 | url = | doi = 10.2307/1931519| id = | accessdate =References
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