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'Ecology' is a broad biological science and can thus be divided into many sub-disciplines using various criteria. For example, one such categorization, based on overall complexity (from the least complex to the most), is:

★ Behavioral ecology, which studies the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior, focusing largely at the level of the individual;

★ Population ecology (or autecology), which deals with the dynamics of populations within species, and the interactions of these populations with environmental factors;

★ Community ecology (or synecology) which studies the interactions between species within an ecological community;

★ Ecosystem ecology, which studies how flows of energy and matter interact with biotic elements of ecosystems;
Ecology can also be classified on the basis of:

★ the primary kinds of organism under study, e.g. animal ecology, plant ecology, insect ecology;

★ the biomes principally studied, e.g. forest ecology, grassland ecology, desert ecology, benthic ecology;

★ the geographic or climatic area, e.g. arctic ecology, tropical ecology

★ the spatial scale under consideration, e.g. molecular ecology, macroecology, landscape ecology;
Specialized branches of ecology include, among others:

★ applied ecology, the practice of employing ecological principles and understanding to solve real world problems (includes agroecology and conservation biology);

★ biogeochemistry, effect of biota on global chemistry, and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the Earth's chemical components in time and space.

★ biogeography, the study of the geographic distributions of species ;

★ chemical ecology, which deals with the ecological role of biological chemicals used in a wide range of areas including defense against predators and attraction of mates;

★ conservation ecology, which studies how to reduce the risk of species extinction;

★ ecological succession, which focuses on understanding directed vegetation change;

★ ecophysiology which studies the interaction of physiological traits with the abiotic environment;

★ ecotoxicology, which looks at the ecological role of toxic chemicals (often pollutants, but also naturally occurring compounds);

★ evolutionary ecology or ecoevolution which looks at evolutionary changes in the context of the populations and communities in which the organisms exist;

★ fire ecology, which looks at the role of fire in the environment of plants and animals and its effect on ecological communities;

★ functional ecology, the study of the roles, or functions, that certain species (or groups thereof) play in an ecosystem;

★ global ecology, which examines ecological phenomena at the largest possible scale, addressing macroecological questions;

★ landscape ecology, which studies the interactions between discrete elements of a landscape;

★ macroecology, the study of large scale phenomena;

★ marine ecology, and aquatic ecology, where the dominant environmental milieu is water;

★ microbial ecology, the ecology of micro-organisms;

★ microecology, the study of small scale phenomena;

★ paleoecology, which seeks to understand the relationships between species in fossil assemblages;

★ restoration ecology, which attempts to understand the ecological basis needed to restore impaired or damaged ecosystems;

★ soil ecology, the ecology of the pedosphere;

★ theoretical ecology, the development of ecological theory, usually with mathematical, statistical and/or computer modeling tools;

★ urban ecology, the study of ecosystems in urban areas.
Ecology also plays important roles in many inter-disciplinary fields:

★ ecological design and ecological engineering.

★ ecological economics.

★ festive ecology.

★ human ecology and ecological anthropology.

★ social ecology, ecological health and environmental psychology.
Finally, ecology has also inspired (and lent its name to) other non-biological disciplines such as

★ industrial ecology.

★ software ecology and information ecology.