Chemical ecology is the study of chemicals involved in the interactions of living organisms. It focuses on the production of and response to signalling molecules (i.e. semiochemicals) and toxins. Chemical ecology is of particular importance among ants and other social insects – including bees, wasps, and termites – as a means of communication essential to social organization. In addition, this area of ecology deals with studies involving defensive chemicals which are utilized to deter potential predators, which may attack a wide variety of species. Other aspects of chemical ecology deal with chemical reactions of organisms with regards to abiotic factors such as temperature and radiation.
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Famous quotes containing the words chemical and/or ecology:
“If Thought is capable of being classed with Electricity, or Will with chemical affinity, as a mode of motion, it seems necessary to fall at once under the second law of thermodynamics as one of the energies which most easily degrades itself, and, if not carefully guarded, returns bodily to the cheaper form called Heat. Of all possible theories, this is likely to prove the most fatal to Professors of History.”
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