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Bio-ecology

work by Shelford and Clements

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Bio-ecology, as developed by Victor Ernest Shelford and Frederic E. Clements, is the study of the interrelationships between plants and animals and their shared environment. Shelford, a zoologist, focused on animal communities, while Clements, a botanist, studied plant communities and the process of plant succession.123

Together, they introduced the concept of the biome, which describes the predominant vegetation and its animal inhabitants characterizing a large geographic area. Their work helped establish ecology as a distinct scientific discipline, emphasizing experimental methods and the study of communities as complex, interacting systems.324

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