Guide to the study of animal ecology

Ecology has no aim, but ecologists have. The problems of the ecologist are not fundamentally different from those of any other kind of naturalist. The superficial differences in aim are due to the different points of view, or methods of approach, rather than to any essential difference in the character of the problems.The essentially biological core of ecology may be best shown by considering the relation which this science bears to other branches of biology, a relation which has been admirably expressed by the eminent physiologist, Burdon-Sanderson (’94, pp. 438-439), as follows:“Now the first thing that strikes us in beginning to think about the activities of an organism is that they are naturally distinguishable into two kinds, according as we consider the action of the whole organism in its relation to the external world or to other organisms, or the action of the parts or organs in their relation to each other.