Environmental Biology – or Ecology – basically deals with interactions between living organisms (i.e., animals, plants and micro-organisms) and their physical, chemical and biological surroundings. In other words, Environmental Biology is primarily about how populations of animals, plants and micro-organisms are distributed in nature and, not least, what regulates their distribution.

Although the distribution of all populations is regulated primarily of the physical and chemical conditions in their surroundings (e.g., climate availability of water, etc.), interactions with other organisms also play a role in that populations often compete for the same limited resources and/or eat each other.

Finally, humans influence the occurrence and distribution of animals and plants to an increasing degree, either directly through manipulation (e.g., hunting, fishing, domestic animal production, agriculture, etc.), or indirectly through changes in habitat quality and availability (e.g., chemical pollution, habitat destruction, etc.).

Broadly speaking, Environmental Biology asks – how does nature work? How do the different components interact with each other? How do humans influence these interactions? And last but not least, how can we best utilize the nature that surrounds us so that we can achieve the largest benefit while at the same time ensuring that our descendents also can draw on nature’s resources.