Macroecology is the subfield of ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 that deals with the study of relationships between organisms and their environment

Natural environment

The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

 at large spatial scales to characterise and explain statistical patterns of abundance, distribution and diversity. The term was coined by James Brown

James Brown (ecologist)

James Hemphill Brown , is an American biologist and academic.He is an ecologist, and a Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico...

 of the University of New Mexico

University of New Mexico

The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...

 and Brian Maurer of Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

 in a 1989 paper in Science.

Macroecology approaches the idea of studying ecosystems using a "top down" approach. It seeks understanding through the study of the properties of the system as a whole; Kevin Gaston and Tim Blackburn make the analogy to seeing the forest for the trees (literally).

Macroecology examines how global development in climate change affect wildlife

Wildlife

Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....

 populations. Classic ecological questions amenable to study through the techniques of macroecology include questions of species richness

Species richness

Species richness is the number of different species in a given area. It is represented in equation form as S.Species richness is the fundamental unit in which to assess the homogeneity of an environment. Typically, species richness is used in conservation studies to determine the sensitivity of...

, latitudinal gradients in species diversity

Latitudinal gradients in species diversity

The increase in species richness or biodiversity that occurs from the poles to the tropics, often referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient , is one of the most widely recognized patterns in ecology. Put another way, in the present day localities at lower latitudes generally have more...

, the species-area curve

Species-area curve

In ecology, a species-area curve is a relationship between the area of a habitat, or of part of a habitat, and the number of species found within that area. Larger areas tend to contain larger numbers of species, and empirically, the relative numbers seem to follow systematic mathematical...

, range size, body size, and species abundance. For example, the relationship between abundance and range size (why species that maintain large local population sizes tend to be widely distributed, while species that are less abundant tend to have restricted ranges) has received much attention (c.f. 'sampling artifact').

External links

• Global Ecology and Biogeography - an important journal of macroecology
• Ecography - an important journal of broad spatial and temporal patterns in ecology
• Evolutionary Ecology Research - a journal of macroecology