I give an account of ecology’s subject matter and generalizations in terms of functional roles. Functional roles are functionally defined kinds which include multiple species or general abiotic factors as members and occur in generalizations which hold across different ecological systems. Functional roles include central objects of study in ecology, like predator, parasite, and producer. I use functional roles to interpret and reorient major controversies in philosophy of ecology, including the metaphysics of ecological systems and the concept of “function.”