Thousands of study and academic opportunities in Ecology are available internationally. Conferences and summer schools in Ecology are organized regularly in the best academic centers of the world. The majority of universities and many foundations also offer BA, MA, and Ph.D. programs in Ecology as wells as postdoctoral research grants, awards, and fellowships. Below you will find the updated list of international opportunities available in Ecology.
Ecology Scholarships
- The University of Maine Ecology and Environmental Sciences
- Prairie View A&M University Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Scholarships
- Montana State University Ecology Scholarships
- The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology Scholarships
- The University of Colorado Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- Iowa State University Ecology Scholarships
- Odum School of Ecology Graduate Awards and Scholarships
- The University of Texas School of Human Ecology Scholarships
- The University of Arizona Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Scholarships and Awards
- The University of Michigan Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Scholarships
Ecology Fellowships
- UK Center for Ecology & Hydrology Research Fellowships
- The University of Colorado Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Grants & Fellowships
- Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Marine Microbial Biology
- Harvard University The Environmental Fellows Program
- Tufts Institute of the Environment Environmental Research Fellowships
- Hixon Center for Urban Ecology Student Research Fellowship
- UC Davis Annual Fellowship Annual ecology Fellowship
- Deep Ecology Artist Fellowship Program
- USGS Ecology Summer Fellows Program
- Ecology Law Quarterly Fellowships & Awards
Ecology Conferences
- British Ecological Society Events
- The Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting
- Society for Ecological Restoration Chapter and Section Conferences
- International Association for Landscape Ecology Conferences
- Hixon Center for Urban Ecology Conference
- International Conference on Ecology & Transportation
- International Conference on Radioecology & Environmental Radioactivity
- Applied Social Ecology Lab Conferences
- National Center for Statistical Ecology Events
Ecology relevant accounts on Twitter
- @ESAEcology
- @JEcology
- @Ecol_Evol
- @EcologyWA
- @ESA_org
- @ecology_tweets
- @wileyecology
- @Funecology
- @BritishEcolSoc
- @molecology
What is Ecology?
The terms "eco-friendly," "ecological disasters," "green production," and others became mainstream recently. People enthusiastically buy eco-products, regardless of whether they're apparel, food, or something else. The component "eco" before any word proves that a particular product was created having its environmental impact in mind. In its turn, this concern about the environment results from many years' non-caring attitude to it. People lived for many centuries by just using what the world gave to them without being much concerned about what they should give back and how not to waste resources and not pollute the planet. With the accumulative effect, humans' impact on the environment reached the stage of global threats and disasters. This made people re-evaluate how they treat their big home, planet, and the eco-movements in almost all the spheres of life began.
Ecology as a discipline is meant to avoid worse scenarios in a human-environment relationship for the future. Ecology studies the relationship between living organisms, including humans, and their surrounding environment. Ecology also explores the way humans can use natural resources, meanwhile do not harm the ecology. Ecologists may also study certain environments, such as marine life, and collect all the relevant information to use them correctly. In more scientific terms, ecology studies the relationship between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) organisms.
Main Types of Ecology
Our planet is vast. Multiple environments are interrelated. As a result, many spheres need to be studied to manage human interactions with different environments effectively. The main branches of ecology include:
- Global Ecology explores the world at a large scale, examining the significant environments such as oceans, land, atmosphere, etc.
- Landscape Ecology focuses on how human interactions can impact the main structure and functions of the landscape.
- Ecosystem Ecology studies the relationship between the living and non-living organisms and the environment in more detail.
- Population Ecology examines what can affect the main characteristics of the population of any species, such as their size, growth rates, etc.
- Organismal Ecology is a study of a single organism, its relations with the environment, and changes it can experience due to ecological changes.
- Molecular Ecology goes deep into the studies of environmental processes at the minor molecular level.
- Behavioral Ecology studies the living patterns of organisms at the stages of their adaptation, reproduction, evolution, etc.
Ecology Studies
Both admissions to Ecology majors and the main knowledge areas of undergraduate studies are connected to ecology-related subjects such as chemistry, math, biology, etc. You might need the transcripts of your high school academic achievements for the mentioned fields.
Undergraduate studies give a general, mainly theoretical understanding of the following areas:
- Cell biology
- Evolution
- Molecular biology
- Environmental physiology
- Conservation
- Biodiversity
- Environmental protection
- Animal biology and behavior
Graduate-level education of Ecology offers narrower, more focused, and advanced areas such as Forest Ecology, Agroecology, Industrial Ecology, and Ecology for other spheres of environment that interest humanity. In this regard, if you have a specific interest in a particular environmental field, you can apply to academic programs of those fields and still get a good portion of ecological knowledge. For example, highly related academic programs of Ecology include Environmental Management, Environmental Sciences, Zoology, Forestry, etc.
Ecology Research Opportunities
Ecology researchers examine what changes in the environment, how it changes, and how long time is needed for certain processes to happen. That is essential to determine what consequences humans are allowed to cause for the environment and which ones they should not. For example, the widely popular conversations about the topic of plastic emerged as ecologists were alarmed that plastic needs a too long time to eliminate in the environment. Similarly, ecologists can warn society of many other material usages, which will have a long-term negative effect.
On the other side, ecology can detect the positive processes in the environment and invite scholarly and ordinary peoples' attention to contribute to those processes. For example, ecologists invent ways to replace many environmentally harmful materials in production with safer alternatives.
To introduce the mission of ecology research in a shorter explanation, it invents safer and more responsible ways of organizing life. The new findings contribute to the improvements in ecosystems, human life, and other organisms' lives, both living and non-living.
Some environments are more harmed than others. Or, at least, scientists discovered more harm for certain environments at this stage of the disciplines' development. That's why some research directions are dominating Ecology. Those directions include:
- Biochemistry
- Ecosystem Science
- Community and Population Ecology
- Evolutionary patterns and Processes
- Sustainability, Environment, and Conservation, etc.
One of the reasons for ecological issues is that people did not know what their surrounding environment is. With the lack of an educated approach to the life organization, today, the planet and all its inhabitants face global threats like pollution, toxication, climate change, etc. Therefore, more than ever, there is a need to explore the environmental conditions and invent ways to improve them. We hope this section of ARMACAD will help you play a vital role in making the planet a better place.