Ecological plasticity:
capacity of a species to adapt and survive in a broad range of different environmental conditions.

Ecology:
the term ecology was coined by Haeckel (1886) from the Greek word Oikos: “home”, and originally indicated the study of the natural habitats of living things. A species’ habitat includes a chemico-physical environment (environment or biotope) favourable to its survival and reproduction, and a biological environment composed of numerous other species that populate the same environment (biocoenosis). Each species interacts with those around it, weakly or strongly, directly or indirectly, with effects that are immediate or prolonged over time. The sum of these interactions constitutes a network of interrelations that are generally complex and adaptive, sometimes evolutionary. Each species modifies its chemico-physical and biological environment in a characteristic way, which is often (but not always) to its advantage. Autoecology studies the relations between a given species and the chemical and physical factors of a specific environment. Synecology studies the relations between the environment and the various species that live in it. Applied ecology is a scientific discipline that deals with the application of ecological theories to the defence of the environment from alterations to the biosphere, and to rationalising the exploitation of the Earth’s resources.

Ecosystem:
the combination of the biological community and the environment with which it is associated, together with the processes and the relations between all of its components.

Ecotone:
transitional area between two ecological systems.

Ecotope:
the smallest territorial unit in which the ecological conditions can be considered homogeneous.

Ecotoxicology:
science which studies the effects of toxic substances on the ecosystem and the processes which accompany them.

Ecotype:
population derived from a species and taxonomically associated with it, which is specialised for life in specific environments, having developed different needs or different adaptations regarding one or more environmental factors with respect to the “usual” or most typical populations of that species.

Edaphic:
relating to the soil.

Emungimento:
estrazione di liquidi dal sottosuolo.

Endemic:
present exclusively in a given geographical area, more or less restricted, to which it is native.

Endogenous:
indicates a process or substance derived from factors originating within a given system (e.g., an organism or the Earth itself). A phenomenon that happens inside the Earth or originates deep below the surface.

Environmental monitoring:
monitoring of specific biological, geological, chemical and physical parameters characterising the environment, performed by conducting surveys and measurements, continuously or with a certain frequency, in time and space.

Euryecious:
of an organism, able to tolerate wide fluctuations in environmental parameters, able to adapt to many environments.

Euryhaline:
of an organism, able to tolerate wide fluctuations in the salinity of the water.

Eustatism:
variation in mean sea level induced by changes to the climate which influence the mass and the volume of the oceans.

Eutrophication:
growth in the concentration of nutrients in the water, which increases primary production. It can cause the excessive development of aquatic plants, the subsequent death of which triggers intense activity on the part of the micro-organisms responsible for their decomposition, in the first instance aerobic, leading to a fall in the levels of oxygen in the water, and then anaerobic, with the release of toxic substances. This process may continue to the point of causing the death of the aerobic organisms by anoxia and poisoning.

Exclusive Species:
species found exclusively in a certain biotope, regardless of their abundance or dominance.

Extended Biotic Index (EBI):
a biotic index that provides a diagnosis of the quality of streams and rivers. The index is usually used to study the composition of the macrobenthic community. The method involves sampling the community, classifying the gathered Systematic Units into “Fauna groups” and determining their total number. It can be applied to entire river basins.

Food Chain (trophic chain):
series of processes by which, in nature, the products of one form of life (its biomass but also its excrement) become food for other forms of life. For example: a caterpillar eats a leaf, a bird eats the caterpillar, a hawk eats the bird. The food chain joins species which are part of a single energy flow within an ecosystem. There exists a grazing chain which joins primary producers to primary consumers, and a detritus chain which joins decomposers with dead material. Food chains are made up of organisms with three main functions: primary producers, able to produce organic matter from inorganic compounds and thus to start the flow of energy along the chain. Primary producers include some bacteria and all green plants, i.e., plants which possess chlorophyll (not all plants are green. there are plants without chlorophyll which consequently are not autotrophic but heterotrophic). Via the process of photosynthesis, which uses solar radiation as a source of energy, primary producers transform water, mineral salts and carbon dioxide into organic matter; consumers, subdivided into primary (herbivores) and secondary, (carnivores); decomposers, represented mainly by bacteria and funguses, which break down the organic matter and return it to the soil or water in the form of inorganic compounds. Food chains are short, but are always interconnected, forming trophic networks.

Fall-out:
settling on the Earth’s surface of dust present in the atmosphere.

Flocculation:
process by which solid particles suspended in a liquid tend to aggregate, forming larger particles (floccules) which generally then sink to the bottom as sediment.

Furans:
see dioxins.