Talk:Ecology (disciplines)

Resurrection "Ecology"
At least as explained in the article at Resurrection ecology, it is not a discipline of ecology and is really misnamed, using "ecology" in the sense of "life in general" or "nature", not in the sense of a scientific discipline. As explained in that article so far, it is a just a technique within evolutionary biology. - Marshman 18:49, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Recent changes
I have reverted the changes to the article - it makes a mess of things. For one, the introduction is now full of fluff. In addition, "habitat for animals" is not why you have things like "forest ecology". And all the "e.g." and "..." just look sloppy. Please discuss the changes here. Guettarda 12:36, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Reasons for my original edits and reversion thereto
I found the article as it existed before August 5 (when I made my edits) not as clear and organized as it could be. This was evident from the first paragraph: "The major sub-disciplines include (in a nested series from the smallest to the largest in scope): etc". The list of 6 which then followed was not a progression from small to large spatial scale, but rather a mix of spatial scales (landscape and global) and complexity levels (popln, community, ecosystem), which is not coherent; one or the other should be chosen. Wanting to preserve the intent but clariy the conceptual basis, I chose to remove the disciplines related to scale and left those related to complexity.

I do not agree that the first 6 subdisciplines listed are necessarily the "major" ones--this seems an arbitrary and subjective choice to me. For example, I would argue that the subdisciplines of plant or animal ecology are much more "major" than either landscape or global ecology, although I am not sure what is implied by "major" in the article, which is its own problem. I thus removed any discussion of major vs minor subdisciplines and re-phrased the discussion by simply stating that various criteria can be used to define ecological subdisciplines, and gave four examples of same. Guettarda removed two of these.

I also added brief descriptions to some of the undescribed subdisciplines and placed them in alphabetical order, which they appear to have been at one time. Also added a couple not in the list.

I see no justification for reverting to the previous state in any of this. The reasons given by you are brusque and insufficient.

Jeeb 01:14, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

removed ecological succession
...which is a specialty under plant ecology. Added biogeography and short defn to list.

Jeeb 01:14, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Hydrobiology
Does hydrobiology belongs to disciplines of ecology? I think, that yes. Because hydrobiology combines disciplines Ecosystem ecology, animal ecology and plant ecology. Am I right? --Snek01 08:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think it is the European term for what Americans call Aquatic Biology, and I would agree it is a discipline of ecology - Marshman 18:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Additions/Revisions
I added a few sections, fattened out the lead a little bit, and organized/reorganized things a little bit here. Hopefully, nothing too controversial added! Best, Eliezg (talk) 19:53, 19 April 2009 (UTC)