SYNECOLOGY

SYNECOLOGY

• “The study of groups of organisms which are associated as a unit”

• Its is the study of ecological relationship of a community

• Synsepaly = fused sepals

• Synecology = syn + eco + logus

• Subdiscipline of ecology that deals with distribution, abundance,

demography, and interactions between coexisting populations.
AUTECOLOGY VS.
SYNECOLOGY
ORGANIZATION OF LIFE
 SPECIES
• Groups of interbreeding natural
populations which produce
fertile offspring which are
reproductively isolated from
other such groups
POPULATION

• A group of organisms of the same species living in the

same area at the same time
COMMUNITY

• A mixture of populations of different species found in a defined area.

• The properties of a community are determined by interactions among

individuals such as competition and parasitism
ECOSYSTEM
BIOSPHERE
BIOSPHERE
ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES

• A community is a group of populations that

coexist in space and time and interact directly or
indirectly

• By "interact", we mean affect each others'

population dynamics

• The definition as presented, is inclusive, and

pertains to all plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, etc.
WHAT IS A PLANT COMMUNITY?

•The plant community is simply all of the plants

occupying an area which an ecologist has supposed
for study

•In many ways, the plant community is an

abstraction
 HISTORY
• The word community has been used by ecologist in many different ways

• The Committee on Nomenclature of Ecological Society of America in 1933

defined the word community as a general term to designate “a sociological
unit of every degree” from simplest to complex.

• For example, mat of algae or a multistoried rain forest

OOSTING (1956)

• Henry J. Oosting (1956) defined communities as “An

aggregate of living plants having mutual relations among
themselves and to the environment”

Oosting, Henry John (United States 1903-1968)

GRUBB (1987)

• Grubb (1987) defined communities as a collection of plant

populations found in one habitat type in one area and
integrated to a degree by competition, complementarity
and dependence
NATURAL OR ARTIFICIAL
• Community structure and functioning simply expresses interactions of the
individual species that make up the local ecosystem and do not reflect any
purposeful organization otherwise over species level.

• As natural selection tends to maximize the reproductive output of individuals,

each populations in a community fosters only its own self-interests.

• The one way flow of energy and recycling of nutrients results from the
interaction of the individuals that make up the community.
 EACH COMMUNITY (A, B, C) IS AN ARBITRARY SECTION

• Species tend to come and go along an gradient according to

each species individualistic response to the environmental
variable.
 ECOTONES

Ecotones

Ecotones are boundary areas between adjacent communities and often share a
mix of species
• The primary issues surrounding the nature of plant communities
divide roughly into those of pattern and process

• The issues of pattern focus on how species and communities are

distributed over the landscape. Are boundaries abrupt or gradual?
How predictable are the patterns?

• The issues of process focus on what processes (e.g., competition,

herbivory, history) actually function in natural communities and
which of these are most important in determining the observed
patterns

• Do some processes predominate? Do processes vary among

communities? Are communities static or dynamic?