Study of movement of nutrients between organisms within environments.

Trophic ecology is study of trophic interactions, that is, feeding relationships, as they occur within communities and ecosystems. As these interactions involve various forms of eating, one organisms of another, there is also a physiological component, and as is a , there also is a population ecology aspect.

See particularly consumer, food chain, food web, herbivory, predation, predator, secondary production, secondary productivity, trophic efficiency, and trophic structure as well as and exploiter.

From :

…trophic ecology can be abstracted as the process whereby organisms the , handling, and of energy and materials relative to their own bodies, while attempting to manipulate, for their own benefit, such exchanges in the bodies of others. This perspective is overtly -neutral, encompassing energy and in forms ranging from and offspring to , nutrients, and . Historically, this multi-dimensional continuum has been carved into a number of more-or-less discrete subject areas, each focusing on specific aspects of these exchanges, including community and population ecology, and life-history theory, nutrition, , and immunology.

In other words, pretty much anything that moves between organisms, particularly that is or passed on from parent to offspring, can be viewed as an aspect of trophic ecology