Ecology-:
Ecology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of life processes explaining adaptations, external relations and interaction among organisms, the flux of materials and energy through living communities, the succession development of ecosystems, and the abundance and distribution of biodiversity in context of the environment. Ecologists are scientists that study ecosystems.
Ecosystems are real places (a pond, field, forest, etc.) or they can be conceptually abstract schemes showing the direction and size of quantified amounts of resources flowing through the system or network of relations. Ecology is distinct from natural history because there are emergent phenomena operating at different environmental scales of study, ranging from molecular to galactic spheres of influence. An understanding of these phenomena requires a conceptual distinction between ecology and the environment.
While the environment of an organism may include everything in the universe external to the organism, there are levels that are more evidently of direct importance, which is the effective environment. Ecology is often misused as a synonym for environment, but it is one of the few academic disciplines dedicated to holism. In contrast, the environment describes all factors and scales of study that are external to the organism, including a biotic factors such as temperature, radiation, light, chemistry, climate and geology, and biotic factors, including genes, cells, organisms, members of the same species and other species that share a habitat.
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Environment- The natural environment includes the nature of the living space (sea or land, soil or water), the chemical constituents and physical properties of the living space, the climate, and the assortment of other organisms present. The phenomenal environment includes changes and modifications of the natural environment made by man.
The effect of the environment on man is modified, in part, by the way the environment is perceived, and human geographers distinguish this-the subjective environment-from the objective environment-the real world as it is. The objective environment is of less importance to the individual than his or her perceived image of it. A division may also be made between the built environment and the social environment which is made up of the various fields of economic, social, and political interactions.
Simmons (Geography 85) integrates the sub-categories above by describing the ‘many layers’ of environment as ‘something more like a double helix of mind and matter, whose gyre seems to be ever-widening, spinning unpredictable combinations of society and economy into the main space, but also throwing off minor gyres, which might be short-lived but might equally be the germs of the main arms of the future at any one moment we can slice through the whole and think about the layers that are discernible to our minds, conscious though we are that to try to freeze such processes inevitably robs them of some of their life and that, like Peer Gynt, the existence, let alone the discovery, of a heart is a bit unlikely.’
Ecosystem:
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An ecosystem is a geographical area of a variable size where plants, animals, the landscape and the climate all interact together. The whole earth’s surface can be described by a series of interconnected ecosystems. All living beings form and are part of ecosystems. They are diverse and always changing. Within an ecosystem, all aspects of the environment (both living things and their non-living settings) interact and affect one another. Every species affects the lives of those around them. Ecosystems can be permanent or temporary. An ecosystem is a unit of interdependent organisms which share the same habitat. Ecosystems usually form a number of food webs.