The study of populations in relation to the environment, including environmental influences on population density and distribution, age structure, and variations in population size.

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Population ecology studies how populations interact with their environment, focusing on how environmental factors shape population density, distribution, age structure, and changes in population size over time. This scope directly matches the idea of examining populations in relation to the environment, including the influences of resources, predation, disease, climate, and migration on who lives where and how many. The broader field of ecology covers many relationships beyond populations, while niche describes a species’ role and resource use, not the population’s dynamics, and habitat refers to the physical place where organisms live rather than the study of population patterns.