Difference between autoecology and synecology and examples

Synecology is the branch of ecology that studies how the communities of an ecosystem are composed and structured, their variations over time, the relationships between the different species that exist in the community and between the ecosystems of the earth. Synecology is the study of a community can be done following two points of view:

• Descriptive synecology uses a static point of view. That is, it is limited to describing the groups of species that inhabit a given ecosystem. We can obtain data on a community’s specific composition, abundance, frequency, constancy, or spatial distributions from descriptive synecology.
• Functional synecology uses a much more dynamic point of dress. This approach considers two aspects. On the one hand, it aims to describe the evolution of two groups and evaluate the influences that allow their existence in that particular environment. On the other, it aims to study the exchanges of matter and energy between all the components of the ecosystem. An example of synecology is studying the food, biomass, or energy chain established in that ecosystem.

The study of synecology offers a wide range of applications that are very useful in studying the environment. An exciting type of application of synecology is to compare the aforementioned indices between various terrestrial ecosystems and relate them to the degree of contamination existing in the soil or with the vegetation present. Some of these studies that have already been carried out have found that the degree of contamination of an environment produces loss of biodiversity of the ecosystem and degrades it. This is so because all species, both plant and animal, have a maximum tolerance to certain pollutants. Once this limit is exceeded, species become more vulnerable and decline, thereby degrading the ecosystem.

Another application is, for example, dividing plant species according to the height above the ground that their perennial tissues reach so that we have classes of plants. This is a way to find out the strategies that plants follow to adapt to the climatic conditions of their ecosystem. Thus, studies have found that the majority of plants in the more humid tropics are phanerophytes (plants that rise to 25 cm above the ground), epiphytes (plants that grow on another plant), and lianas, in the desert there are a majority of therophytic plants (complete their life cycle only in the favorable season) and in non-humid tropical and subtropical regions there are a majority of succulent plants (which accumulate amounts of water)

Another application is the study of the distribution of species in the environment. This can be divided into three:

• Random form: all areas of the space have the same probability of being occupied, and the presence of one does not affect the location of another.
• Uniform shape: all areas of the space have the same probability of being occupied, and the presence of one affects the location of another.
• Grouped form: all areas of the space may or may not have the same probability of being occupied, and the presence of one affects the location of another.

Autecology is the branch of ecology responsible for studying the adaptations that a species undergoes to inhabit its specific ecosystem, that is, the physiological, morphological, and ethological characteristics that allow it to face the abiotic or biotic conditions of the ecosystem in the one who lives. These adaptations are generally common in members of the population and inherited. Evolution can give:

• Homologous organs are similar organs with the same embryonic origin in two different species but with different functions.
• Analogous organs are similar in morphology and function in two different species but different in their embryonic origin.

In summary, the clear difference between autecology and synecology is that both branches differ in that agroecology studies relationships of individual species with their environment and synecology studies several species.

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