The Learning Network Blog: Word of the Day | ecologist

: a biologist who studies the relation between organisms and their environment

The word ecologist has appeared in 141 New York Times articles in the past year, including on May 28 in “Mapping the Great Indoors” by Peter Andrey Smith:

Here’s an undeniable fact: We are an indoor species. We spend close to 90 percent of our lives in drywalled caves. Yet traditionally, ecologists ventured outdoors to observe nature’s biodiversity, in the Amazon jungles, the hot springs of Yellowstone or the subglacial lakes of Antarctica. (“When you train as an ecologist, you imagine yourself tromping around in the forest,” Dr. Fierer said. “You don’t imagine yourself swabbing a toilet seat.”)

But as humdrum as a home might first appear, it is a veritable wonderland. Ecology does not stop at the front door; a home to you is also home to an incredible array of wildlife.

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