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INTRODUCTION & HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

 In 1859, the French Zoologist, Isodore Geoffroy St. Hilaire had proposed the term ethology for " the study of the relations of the organisms within the family and society in the aggregate and in the community." In 1868, there are, however, references in literature of German biologist, H. Reiter introduced the term oekologie and Ernst Haeckel (1869) put the first precise definition of this term as "...the knowledge of the sum of the relations of organisms to the surrounding outer world, to organic and inorganic conditions of existence...". The term ecology was coined by combining two Greek words, oikos (meaning 'house' or 'dwelling place') and logos (meaning ' the study of ' ) to denote such relationship between the organisms and their environment. 

There is some controversy about the author who coined the term ecology and first used it in the literature. Ernst Haeckel in his definition of ecology, refers to the "surrounding outer world", which we now call the environment of an organism and his "organic and inorganic conditions" , we call biotic and abiotic environmental factors, respectively. Biotic factors are the other organisms encountered, whether are the same or different species. Abiotic factors are the physical and chemical conditions such as temperature, moisture, respiratory gases and substrate. A.G.Tansley (1935), the philosopher ecologist, visualized a holistic approach of the study recognizing the fact that the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) components of nature are not only interrelated but also function in an orderly manner as a definite system, proposed the term ecosystem (organisms interacting with each other and their surrounding physical and chemical factors extant in a given space). E.P. Odum with such holistic approach put forth a different definition of ecology in his own (1969) words, "As you know ecology is often defined as the study of interrelationship between organisms and environment. I feel that this conventional definition is not suitable; it is too vague and broad. Personally, I prefer to define ecology as 'the study of the structure and function of ecosystem' or we might say in a less technical way 'the study of structure and function of nature'." With more or less similar concept, put about the triangle of nature i.e. form, function and factors interactions defined ecology by R.Mishra in 1967. 

In Indian writings as Vedic, Epic and Puranic etc., we may find references to ecological thoughts and Chakra described the importance of Vayu ( gases and air), Jala (water), Desha (topography) and Time in regulation of plants life. The Greek philosophers and scientists like Hippocrates (father of medicine), Aristotle described in there writings on natural history, the habits of animal and plants growing in different areas. Linnaeus and Buffon , in his book 'Natural History' in 1756 made notable contributions to ecology. 

In 19th century , more areas were explored for flora and fauna mainly by B.A. von Humboldt, Edward Forbes, Richard Spruce and J. Hooker who explored different continental areas. During mid -19th century that biologist established the fact of dynamic interactions between organisms and their environment and introduced different terms in literature to denote such a relationship. In 20th century ecology grew out as a distinct discipline of natural history. In this process, vital was the work of Charles Darwin's book 'On the Origin of Species' was published in 1859, before the term ecology was coined, it contained many seeds that could grow to dominate modern ecology. 

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