Iictuiin;/ till' beauty oj its on/anicatiou is perhaps 

 better in proportion ( Mac lady en 1957: 246). 



RKLATION TO OTHER SCIENCES 



Ecology is one of tlie three main divisions 

 of biology : the other two being morphology and phys- 

 iology. The emphasis in morphology is on under- 

 standing the structure of organisms ; in physiology, 

 on how they function : and in ecology, on their ad- 

 justments to the environment. These divisions over- 

 lap broadly. To appreciate fully the structure of an 

 organ, one needs to know how it functions, and the 

 way it functions is clearly related to environmental 

 conditions. The morphologist is concerned with prob- 

 lems of anatomy, histology, cytologj', embryology, 

 evolution, and genetics : the physiologist, with inter- 

 preting functions in terms of chemistry, physics, and 

 mathematics : and the ecologist, with distribution, be- 

 havior, populations, and communities. The evolution 

 of adaptation and of species is of mutual interest to 

 the ecologist and to the geneticist ; bioclimatology is 

 a connecting link between ecology and physiology. 

 All areas, in the final analysis, are simply different 

 approaches to an understanding of the meaning of 

 life. 



SUBDIVISIONS OF ECOLOGY 



Ecology may be studied with particular ref- 

 erence to animals or to plants, hence animal ecology 

 and plant ecology. Animal ecology, however, cannot 

 be adequately understood except against a consider- 

 able background of plant ecology. When animals and 

 plants are given equal emphasis, the term bioecology 

 is often used. Courses in plant ecology usually dis- 

 miss animals as but one of many factors in the en- 

 vironment. Synecology is the study of communities, 

 and autccology the study of species. 



In this book we shall survey the fundamentals and 

 basic facts of animal ecology. We will study com- 

 nmnity ecology, the local distribution of animals in 

 various habitats, the recognition of community units, 

 and succession ; ecological dynamics, the processes of 

 dispersal, ecesis, reaction, coaction, productivity, com- 

 petition, speciation, and regulation of abundance ; and 

 geographic ecology, geographic distribution, palaeo- 

 ecology. and biomes. We will also be interested 

 throughout the text with how species and individ- 

 uals respond and adjust to the physical factors of 

 their environment, but a full study of physiological 

 ecology must be left to another time and place. 



When special consideration of their ecology is 

 given to one or another taxonomic group, we speak 



E.A. Birge. limnologlst. 



Henry C. Cowles, plant ecologist (courtesy R.J. Pool). 



Victor E. Shelford. aninnal ecologist. 



The scope and history of ecology 



