How does ecology differ from biology?

Question

What precisely is ecology? How does it differ from biology? Because I never studied biology after high school, please explain as if I were 10 years old. I only know that ecology is a subset of biology I tried some dictionaries but they didn't adequately discriminate. I tried to find an explanation from a scientist: the following appears to claim that only ecology concerns some organism's external interactions with other entities? But how? Biology must also? For example, suppose that someone studies prions' interactions with humans, and not just prions. Then this is biology, not ecology? [Source](https://marineecologist.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/marine-ecology-or-marine-biology-whats-the-difference/): by [Matthew Fraser](http://www.plants.uwa.edu.au/research/postgrads?profile/1/id/3895), [PhD Candidate (Marine Ecology) at University of Western Australia](http://au.linkedin.com/pub/matthew-w-fraser/61/b0a/838) >So what makes us fully fledged marine ecologist different from our biologist counterparts? Well, I think that marine ecology is even cooler than marine biology because as marine ecologists we link what we know about the biology of a given species with other plants/animals and the environment as well. [...] >If we were splitting hairs, ecology is technically a form of biology, but I felt the need to write this post given how passionately I see some researchers stating that they are in one camp or another. [...] But as an ecologist (albeit a biased one!) what gets me excited isn’t just finding out how the amazing plants and animals we find in the ocean work, but how they interact with each other and their environment, explaining why we see certain species in some places and not others!

Answer 1

The way that I think about it is this:

Biology is the study of living things. It is a much more general subject. Different branches of biology can include microbiology, zoology, botany, anatomy, physiology, and ecology.

Ecology is a branch of biology, and looks at the entire ecosystem, focusing on the interactions between animals, plants, and their environments. For example, bees and flowers share a symbiotic relationship, because their livelihoods rely on each other (the bee needs the flowers for food, the flowers need the bees to pollinate them). Another example would be lions and antelope-- they share a predator and prey relationship (the lions eat the antelope).

It can get confusing-- biology and ecology are greatly intertwined, because everything that lives has to live in an ecosystem, and the things that are alive are interacting with one another and therefore effecting each other.

If you need more help with biology, ecology, or what the difference is, please feel free to contact me!