Dugger Mountain Wilderness Area in Northeastern Alabama
Ecology is the study of
organisms and
their interactions with the environment and with other organisms. BIO 301 is a 4 hour undergraduate course that is a required course for all Biology and Environmental Science majors. The
term Ecology comes from the Greek words oikos, "the family household"
and logy, "the study of." The term ecology was coined by the German
zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1869 when he called the study of the
relationship of animals to their environment "Oekologie." However, the
origin of ecological studies actually began around 300 BC when
Theophrastus wrote about the interrelations between organisms and the
environment. Until the environmental movement began in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, the term ecology was known only by a few specialists.
With the advent of the environmental movement, ecology became popular
in newspapers, magazines, books, and television. To this day, the term
"ecology" is mistakenly equated with the environmental movement and is
oversimplified, misused, and abused.
