Ecology & the Environment
From individual ecosystems to the planet-scale challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change.
Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with each other and their surroundings — and increasingly, of how the systems they form are being reshaped by a single species (ours). It is the most planet-scale branch of biology, the one that asks how the whole machinery of life fits together and what happens when pieces start to fall out.
Articles in this cluster
Ecology in Action: How Ecosystems Work
Producers, consumers, decomposers, food webs, and why a healthy ecosystem is more than just the sum of its species.
Biodiversity Hotspots
Why a handful of regions on Earth hold most of its species, the threats they face, and what conservation actually means in practice.
The Amazing World of Marine Biology
From sunlit surface waters down to the abyssal plains, and why understanding marine biology is essential to understanding Earth as a whole.
The Role of Biology in Combating Climate Change
Forests, wetlands, soil microbes, marine ecosystems, and engineered crops as climate tools.
Mass Extinctions: Life's Great Resets
The Big Five extinction events — plus the proposed Sixth happening right now. Lessons in resilience and fragility.
How to read this cluster
If you want the foundations: start with Ecology in Action — everything else here builds on the energy-and-nutrient logic explained there. If you care about conservation: read Biodiversity Hotspots, then The Amazing World of Marine Biology. If climate is your way in: The Role of Biology in Combating Climate Change ties the science to the urgency of the present moment.
Related sub-pillars
Return to the main Biology resources hub · Browse: ecology · biodiversity · conservation · marine biology · climate change