Plant ecology
![A tropical plant community on Diego Garcia](/Images/godic/202502/02/Diego_Garcia_Mixed_Species_Marsh4405.png")
![Alexander von Humboldt's work connecting plant distributions with environmental factors played an important role in the genesis of the discipline of plant ecology.](/Images/godic/202502/02/AvHumboldt4405.jpg")
![World biomes are based upon the type of dominant plant.](/Images/godic/202502/02/Biomes4405.jpg")
Plant ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology which studies the distribution and abundance of plants, the effects of environmental factors upon the abundance of plants, and the interactions among and between plants and other organisms. Examples of these are the distribution of temperate deciduous forests in North America, the effects of drought or flooding upon plant survival, and competition among desert plants for water, or effects of herds of grazing animals upon the composition of grasslands.