What is the definition of ecology?

Ecology is defined as the study of interactions between organisms and their environment. This discipline examines how living organisms (plants, animals, fungi, microbes) interact with each other and with their physical surroundings, which include abiotic factors such as soil, water, and climate. It seeks to understand the relationships and dependencies within ecosystems, focusing on the flow of energy and nutrients, population dynamics, community structure, and environmental changes.

While other options address important aspects of biological and environmental sciences, they do not encapsulate the broader systemic viewpoint that ecology offers. The study of animal behavior in natural habitats focuses specifically on behavioral ecology, which is a subfield. Analyzing chemical processes within organisms pertains to biochemistry or physiology, and exploring climate patterns in ecosystems aligns more closely with climatology or environmental science rather than the comprehensive relational study that defines ecology.