Ecology is two close things, and people slide between them. First, it is the real web of links in a place: plants, animals, people, soil, water and weather, all affecting one another. Second, it is the science that tries to understand that web. A forest has an ecology; so does a pond. If you take out one piece — the bees, the wolves, the clean water — the other pieces shift. People also stretch the word in daily talk: “the ecology of a classroom,” “office ecology,” meaning how the parts of a system get along even when no trees are involved. That stretch is common, but a little loose; the tidy meanings are the living web and the science of it. Though actually, ecology is not just a prettier word for environment. Environment is more like the surroundings; ecology stresses the relationships. A German scientist, Ernst Haeckel, coined Ökologie in 1866; English took the idea as ecology. Underneath are Greek οἶκος, “house,” and -λογία, “study of” — so the picture is “the study of our house,” the living world we live in.