Functional ecology is the branch of ecology

Ecology (disciplines)

Ecology is a broad biological science and can be divided into many sub-disciplines using various criteria. Many of these fields overlap, complement and inform each other. Indeed, few of these disciplines exist in isolation. For example, the population ecology of an organism is a consequence of...

 that focuses on the roles, or functions, that species play in the community or ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

 in which they occur. In this approach, physiological, anatomical, and life history characteristics of the species are emphasized. It represents the true crossroads between ecological patterns and the processes and mechanisms that underlie them.

Functional ecology sits at the nexus of several disparate disciplines and serves as the unifying principle between evolutionary biology, genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

 and genomics

Genomics

Genomics is a discipline in genetics concerning the study of the genomes of organisms. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis,...

, and traditional ecological studies.