As academic disciplines ecology and wildlife ecology both recognize the importance of habitat to the daily survival of individuals and long-term persistence of populations. Although the explicit and direct study of habitat originally emerged in ecology, wildlife ecologists historically have been more involved in its study and in the analysis of species–habitat relationships. This is partly due to wildlife ecologists being interested in habitat management for particular species and applying a resource-based concept of habitat to better understand population growth rates, particularly for harvested or hunted species. In the 1930s onward for several decades, Aldo Leopold played a prominent role in establishing wildlife ecology (and management) as its own academic field and practice. Leopold was keenly aware of population dynamics although he seemed to not directly link his empirical observations of population fluctuations to any of the emerging mathematical population growth models of the day. This may have also indirectly allowed the early growth of wildlife ecology to proceed without any of its own emergent theory. Despite historical, paradigmatic, practical, and subject matter differences between the two disciplines, both are becoming more similar to one another as interdisciplinary collaboration and communication continue to increase.