⦿The term ecology was coined only as late as 1868. It has been derived from two Greek words namely, ‘Oikos’ meaning home or estate and ‘logos’ meaning study.
⦿ Literally it means the study of the home or household of nature.
⦿ Ecology is defined ‘as the scientific study of the relationship of the living organisms with each other and with their environment.
⦿Ecological studies are aimed to understand the relationships of organisms with their environment.
⦿ The classical texts of the Vedic period (1500 BC-600 BC) such as the Vedas, the Samhitas, the Brahmanas and the Aranyakas-Upanishads contain many references to ecological concepts.
⦿The Indian treatise on medicine, the Caraka-Samhita (I st Century AD4th Cenklry AD) and the surgical text Susruta-Samhita (1st Century AD-4th Century AD), show that people during this period had a good understanding of plant and animal ecology.
⦿ These texts contain classification of animals on the basis of habit and habitat, land in terms of nature of soil, climate and vegetation; and description of plants typical to various localities.
⦿ Caraka- Samhita contains information that air, land, water and seasons were indispensable for life and that polluted air and water were injurious for health.
⦿Hippocrates in his work ‘On Airs, Waters and Places’ stressed the need for ecological background for medicdl students, as he emphasised the effect of water, air and locality on health and diseases in man.
⦿Theophrastus (370-250 BC) was the first person to introduce ecological approach long before the term ecology was coined. He studied plant types and forms in relation to altitude, moisture and light exposure.
⦿The French Naturalist Georges Buffon (1707-1788) in his book Natural History (1756) made a serious attempt to systematise the knowledge concerning the relation of animals to environment.
⦿Anton-van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), the microscopist, pioneered the study of food chain and population regulation which have grown into the major areas of modern ecology.
⦿ Hanns Reiter who in 1868 appears to have coined the tern ‘ecology’ by combining the two Greek words Oikos (home) and Logos (study).
⦿Gernan biologist Ernst Haeckel(1866- 1870) who for the first time elaborated the definition of ecology as:-
” By ecology we mean the body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature – the investigations of the total relations of animal both to its inorganic and to its organic environment; including above all, its friendly and inimical relation with those animals and plants with which it comes directly or indirectly into contact- in a word, ecology is the study of all the complex interrelations referred to by Darwin as the conditions of the struggle for existence”