Title: key concepts
Course: What can WE do for biodiversity? The European Strategies for habitat conservation > Section: 1_A tale of succes: behind the Iberian lynx tracks

Ecology is the science that studies the relationships between the living beings and the physical environment that surrounds them. The unit of study in ecology is the ecosystem: it includes both the biotic factors, also called biocoenosis, and abiotic factors, also known as biotope

Therefore, biocoenosis or ecological community includes the different populations of organisms that live in an ecosystem, and biotope the physical environment occupied by the biocoenosis.

Habitat is the area where an organism lives (and a species, by extension). It has the environmental conditions that a species needs to live.

Ecological levels: from individuals to ecosystems

image from:

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-biology/hs-ecology/hs-introduction-to-ecology/a/ecological-levels-from-individuals-to-ecosystems