Population and community Ecology
- Describe Hadley cells, the patterns of climate they cause, and where they are located.
- Briefly describe the following biomes, including what biotic or abiotic factors are important in them: (2pts)
- Contrast density and dispersion. What are the 3 types of dispersion and what conditions usually cause each type of dispersion?
- a. Define demography.
b. Describe and contrast the 3 types of survivorship curves. Include a description of the life history of organisms for each curve.
- Contrast semelparous and iteroparous life histories, giving at least one example not included in the lecture.
- a. Write out the equations for exponential and logistic growth, and explain what each variable represents.
b. A population of beetles has 250 individuals. Assuming an intrinsic rate of increase of .2, how many beetles will be added to the population in the next generation if they were growing exponentially?
c. How many will be added to the population under logistic growth? (assume that the carrying capacity is 300 beetles)
K = 300
d. Explain why these two numbers are different.
- Describe demographic transition, explaining what happens at the start, middle and end. Where is population growth the greatest?
- A fly looks like a poisonous wasp. What type of mimicry is this? Explain how this difference from the other type of mimicry.
- Describe the differences between a fundamental and realized niche. What type of community relationship is this?
- Describe some of the strategies that animals use to deter predators, with examples. Be sure to include technical terms like aposematic and cryptic.
- Describe each of the community relationships in terms of benefits or harm (or nothing) to each member in the pair. Give examples for each. Include predation, herbivory, commensalism, parasitism and competition. Putting this in a table format will help. For extra challenge, describe the relationships between leaf-cutter ants, the plants they cut, and the fungi they farm.
The table describes each community relationship in terms of benefits, harm, or no effect to each member of the pair, along with examples:
Community Relationship | Benefits to Member 1 | Harm to Member 1 | Benefits to Member 2 | Harm to Member 2 | Examples |
Predation | |||||
Herbivory | |||||
Commensalism | |||||
Parasitism | |||||
Competition |
- Contrast species richness and relative abundance.
- Describe the concept of keystone species and how they increase diversity in a community.
- Describe disturbance and succession. Contrast primary and secondary succession.