Macroecology is the subfield of

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

that deals with the study of relationships between organisms and their

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

at large spatial scales to characterise and explain statistical patterns of abundance, distribution and diversity. The term was coined in a small monograph published in Spanish in 1971 by Guillermo Sarmiento and Maximina Monasterio, two Venezuelan researchers working in tropical savanna ecosystemsLevin, S. A., Carpenter, S. R., Godfray, H. C. J., Kinzig, A. P., Loreau, M., Losos, J. B., ... & Wilcove, D. S. (Eds.). (2012). The Princeton guide to ecology. Princeton University Press. and later used by

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the hono ...

of the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

and Brian Maurer of

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It ...

in a 1989 paper in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

''. Macroecology approaches the idea of studying

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syst ...

s using a "top down" approach. It seeks understanding through the study of the properties of the system as a whole; Kevin Gaston and Tim Blackburn make the analogy to seeing the forest for the trees.Gaston, K.J. and T.M. Blackburn. 2000. ''Pattern and Process in Macroecology''. Blackwell Science. Macroecology examines how global development in climate change affect

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

populations. Classic ecological questions amenable to study through the techniques of macroecology include questions of

species richness Species richness is the number of different species represented in an ecological community, landscape or region. Species richness is simply a count of species, and it does not take into account the abundances of the species or their relative ab ...

latitudinal gradients in species diversity Species richness, or biodiversity, increases from the poles to the tropics for a wide variety of terrestrial and marine organisms, often referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient. The latitudinal diversity gradient is one of the most widel ...

, the species-area curve, range size, body size, and

species abundance In ecology, local abundance is the relative representation of a species in a particular ecosystem. It is usually measured as the number of individuals found per sample. The ratio of abundance of one species to one or multiple other species livin ...

. For example, the relationship between abundance and range size (why species that maintain large local population sizes tend to be widely distributed, while species that are less abundant tend to have restricted ranges) has received much attention.

References

External links

Scientific journals covering macroecology:
''Global Ecology and Biogeography''

''Ecography''

''Diversity and Distribution''

''Evolutionary Ecology Research''
{{Authority control Subfields of ecology Systems ecology