Chapter 1 Summary
CONCEPT 1.1 Events in the natural world are interconnected.
- Laboratory and field experiments on the effects of parasites on amphibian deformities illustrate how events in nature can be connected with one another.
- Because events in natural systems are interconnected, any action can have unanticipated side effects.
- People both depend on and affect the natural environment.
CONCEPT 1.2 Ecology is the scientific study of interactions between organisms and their environment.
- Ecology is a scientific discipline that is related to, but differs from, other disciplines such as environmental science.
- Public and professional ideas about ecology often differ.
- Ecology is broad in scope and encompasses studies at many levels of biological organization.
- All ecological studies address events on some spatial and temporal scales while ignoring events at other scales.
CONCEPT 1.3 Ecologists evaluate competing hypotheses about natural systems with experiments, observations, and models.
- In an ecological experiment, an investigator alters one or more features of the environment and observes the effect of that change on natural processes.
- Some features of the natural world are best investigated with a combination of field observations, small-scale experiments, and quantitative models.
- Experiments are designed and analyzed in consistent ways: typically, each treatment, including the control, is replicated; treatments are assigned at random; and statistical methods are used to analyze the results.
- The information in this book is not a static body of knowledge; what we know about ecology is always changing.
