Discussion on the scientific concept of ecology and its evolution and the contemporary ecologi-cal discipline system

Abstract

Ecology is not only a branch of biology, but also an important part of environmental science and earth system science. The results of ecological studies can be directly applied in biodiversity conservation of plant, animal and microbe, biological resource utilization and biological industry management, and other fields. The concept of ecosystem extends classic ecology or basic ecology research to a new stage of ecosystem ecology or ecosystem science, which has laid a theoretical foundation for the scientific research of ecological environment at the global and continental scales, and has promoted the integration of biology, geography, and environmental science, and cross disciplinary of the natural sciences, humanities, and social economic sciences. During the integration processes, together with constantly absorbing nutrition from different disciplines, researches of eco-logy put forward a lot of scientific concepts or theories, and have been applied and developed in the relevant scientific research, formed contemporary ecology and ecosystem science system centered on the cognition of ecosystem, resource environment, and the mutual feedback relation with human society. We comprehensively discussed the scientific concept, basic theory, and discipline system of contemporary ecology from the origin and development of ecological thought, the scientific connotation, and extension of ecological concept, etc., and tried to sort out, investigate, and analyze the scientific connotation, discipline category and discipline system of contemporary ecology, put forward the branch discipline system classification scheme of basic ecology and applied ecology, with the aim to provide references for perfecting and reconstructing the discipline system of contemporary ecology.