What is the primary concern of ecology?

Ecology is a subject which studies the interactions among organisms and between the organism and its physical (abiotic) environment. Ecology is basically concerned with four levels of biological organization – organisms, populations, communities and biomes. All the cormorants in a wetland, rats in an abandoned dwelling, teakwood trees in a forest tract, bacteria in a culture plate and lotus plants in a pond, are some examples of a population. In earlier chapters you have learnt that although an individual organism is the one that has to cope with a changed environment, it is at the population level that natural selection operates to evolve the desired traits. Population ecology is, therefore, an important area because it links ecology to population genetics and evolution