The Environment, Organisms and Relationships

Abstract

A famous poster shows earthrise seen from the moon. The beautiful image of the blue oceans and white clouds emphasizes that, despite its name, Earth is a planet of water. Most of the evolutionary history of life has been played out in the medium of water. The interactions between organisms and their abiotic environment and between organisms themselves have provided the dynamic for evolution by natural selection. Ecology is the study of those interactions. Its central question is what abiotic and biotic conditions are required for organisms to successfully reproduce themselves? The problems in ecology come not from the difficulties of the questions but from the complexities of the potential answers.