Cheryl Nus z, age 11, of Conway Springs,  for her question;

What is ecology?

The word ecology is less than 100 years old, yet the study is as old as man himself. The rice farmers who threw seeds into the mud of the flooded Nile were ecologists, The cave men who fished in the swamps and hunted bison on the plains were ecologists. Much later, those who did field work in botany,, in zoology, geology and geography were ecologists. All these sensible people saw a relationship between some special area of the earth and the things that thrived there,

We take for granted that fish live in the sea, that cactus plants have the deserts more or less to themselves, that palms thrive on sunny isles and pines climb up the slopes of tall mountains, We also know that foxes can live only where there are plenty of woodchucks or other grass eaters. Frogs and brown bats live only where there are plenty of insects. There are no monkeys in the Arctic and no polar bears in the tropics.

The ecologist knows that these things do not just happen by chance. Each plant and animal lives where conditions suit it best. No fish can live on dry land because it needs to take its life giving oxygen from the water. Most plants need plenty of water and they thrive best where rain fall is plentiful. The most lush regions are the warm wet tropics. Only the cactus and a few other plants ,can get along on short water rations. This is why we find them in the lonely deserts.

Foxes are meat eaters and the ecologist knows that they must live where fresh meat is plentiful. For the same reason, frogs, brown bats and many birds must live where insects are plentiful. Where there are frogs, we find the snakes who feed upon them.

It follows then, that certain regions produce special communities or societies of plants and animals. The plants and animals that can thrive in the rainy topics would soon perish in the cold Arctic or the dry deserts.

There is a balance of nature in each ecological zone, Each plant ar4 animal, has a special role of give and take. In our temperature zone, frogs help keep down the insect population and in turn they provide food for snakes and foxes. The animal world enriches the soil for the plant world and the plant world provides oxygen and food for the animals,

The ecologist knows that we can upset this balance of nature by removing or adding a plant or animal to a community, If we shoot all the mountain pumas, the deer become so numerous that they eat up all the foliage and starve. When we import an insect such as the Japanese beetle, which has no natural enemies in our ecological zone, it soon becomes a serious pest.