Hello, I've been out of this list for many years and signed it again two days ago. I'm very glad to see that it shifted from mainly naive questions about environmentalism to serious discussions about the science of ecology like that exciting messages about the niche theory.
Back to the central issue of this message, we must remember that the science of ecology is defined as an study of the relationships of the organisms with the environment and/or other organisms. This implies that the ecology science is also concerned with population dynamics, symbiosis, physiological constraints and several other properties of organisms, not environments. At best, environmental science could be considered some branch of the community ecology. But my felling is that while ecology is a organism-oriented science, environmental science is a more holistic science with emphasis on abiotic characteristics. Apologizes for the bad English Osmar J. Luiz Jr. Ecology MSc student Zoology Dept. Universidade Estadual de Campinas Brazil
