Study of interactions between the biotic and abiotic components of environments especially in terms of nutrient and energy flow.

Though relevant simply towards understanding how ecosystems function, particularly in terms of and energy flow, the principles of ecosystem ecology are crucial to understanding the functioning of what are known variously as or biogeochemical cycles.

This is related to but nonetheless not identical to the trophic interactions studied under the guise of community ecology. Ecosystem ecology also substantially overlaps with and indeed the ecological study of the bisophere as a whole.