Assignment No.

1
I. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer.

1. Henry Allan Gleason is the scientist that emphasized that similar climate supports similar
vegetation even though the species are different.
2. Raymond Laurel Lindeman developed an ecological approach on limnology.
3. Ecology/oekologie means a “household” or a place to live.
4. Arthur Tansley introduced the term and concept of ecosystem.
5. The history of ecology could be traced back to Theophrastus who described various
interrelationships between organism and the environment.
6. Johannes Eugenius Warming wrote the first text on plant ecology entitled Plantesamfund
or “Oecology of Plants”.
7-8. Thomas Robert Malthus was the first economist to propose a systematic theory of population and
he articulated his views in his book entitled An Essay on the Principle of Population
published in 1798 (year).
9-10. It was Austrian geologist Eduard Suess who proposed the term Die Entstehung der Alpen
in 1875 for the conditions promoting life, such as those found on Earth, which includes flora, fauna,
and minerals.
11. Pedology is the scientific discipline concerned with all aspects of soils, including their
physical and chemical properties, the role of organisms in soil production and in relation to soil
character, the description and mapping of soil units, and the origin and formation of soils.
12-13. Victor Shelford and Frederic Edward Clements introduced the idea of biomes which
they defined as major regional biotic communities of plants and animals together.
14. The Malthusian theory states that population grows geometrically while food production
grows arithmetically.
15. Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen developed the concepts of instinctive and aggressive
behavior of certain organisms therefore led to the development of behavioral ecology.

II. Answer the following :

1. Differentiate autecology and synecology
The study of the interactions between living things and their environments is known as ecology. In
ecology, everything is connected to everything else and there is a constant interaction between
organisms and their environment.
Autecology and Synecology are two main branches of ecology.
Autecology is the study of individual organism or individual species. It is also known as population
ecology.
Synecology is the study of group of organisms of different species which are associated together as a
unit in form of a community. Also known as community ecology.
Autecology helps us to understand the relationships between individual plants and environment.
Synecology helps us to understand the relationships between communities and environment.
 2. Enumerate the three definitions of ecology according to :
a. Ernst Haeckel
 “relation of the animal both to its organic as well as its inorganic environment.”
 “household,” “home,”
 “place to live.”
b. Herbert G. Andrewartha and Louis Charles Birch
Birch demonstrated that external processes, driven by weather and other types of disturbance,
were vastly important in controlling the numbers and distribution of animals.

Birch credited Dr Herbert Andrewartha as having a great influence on him, teaching him "to think" and to
discover "the social responsibility of the scientist", saying:
In view of the enormous transformation of the modern world as a result of science and technology, the
scientist is responsible for much that has happened both good and bad. This understanding is based on
the premise that science is not value free.

c. Eugene Odum
 "ecology" was not yet a field of study that had been defined as a separate discipline.
 as a discipline that should be a fundamental dimension of the training of a biologist.
 He called it as an “ecosystem”

3. Explain
a. “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in
the universe”. ----John Muir
b. “ There is strength and stability in the unity of differences”.