Ecology: Organisms, Populations, Communities, and Ecosystems - Prof. Robert Okazaki, Study notes of Zoology

Download Ecology: Organisms, Populations, Communities, and Ecosystems - Prof. Robert Okazaki and more Study notes Zoology in PDF only on Docsity! STUDY GUIDE CHAPTER 2 ANIMAL ECOLOGY 1.1 Every Species Has Its Niche 1.2 Hierarchy of Ecology A. Definitions and Levels of Study 1. Ecology is the study of the relationship of organisms to their environment. 2. Ecology is a scientific study and not the same as environmentalism. 3. Ecology is studied as a hierarchy of biological systems. 4. The hierarchy of study includes organism, population, community, ecosystem and biosphere. 5. It is necessary to understand the physiological and behavioral mechanisms of organisms to understand their ecological relationships. 6. When organisms live together with others of their species, this population has properties that cannot be discovered by studying individuals alone. 7. Populations of many species occur together in complex communities. a. Variation and evenness of distribution within a community is measured as species diversity. b. Many species have relationships such as predator-prey and parasite-host associations. c. Competition occurs when food or space becomes limited. d. Mutualism occurs when both members of a pair benefit from their interactions. 8. Larger units or ecosystems allow study of the community and the physical environment. B. Environment and the Niche 1. An animal’s environment is composed of all conditions that directly affect its chances of survival and reproduction. 2. Physical, or abiotic, factors include space, energy forms including sunlight, heat, wind and water currents, and the soil, air, water and chemicals (Figure 2.1). 3. Biotic factors include other organisms as food, or competitors, predators, hosts or parasites. 4. Resources include space or food utilized directly by the animal. 5. Some resources are expendable; food, once eaten, is no longer available and must be continuously replenished. 6. Space is not consumed by being used and is therefore nonexpendable. 7. The habitat is the physical space where an animal lives and is defined by the animal’s normal activity. 8. Niche (Figure 2.2) a. The life requirements of an organism define its niche. b. A niche includes the animal’s limits of temperature, moisture, food and other factors. c. These limitations for living and reproducing can be graphed. d. Addition of important factors such as salinity or pH describes a complex multidimensional niche. 9. Some animals are generalists with wide niches; they can tolerate a wide range of salinity or eat a wide range of foods. 10. Other animals are specialists and have narrow dietary requirements (Figure 2.3) or limited tolerance to temperature changes, etc. 11. The fundamental niche describes its potential to live within a wider range of conditions. 12. The realized niche is the narrower subset of suitable environments where it actually occurs. C. Populations 1. Population Factors a. A population is a potentially reproductively interactive group of animals of the same species. b. Local disjunct populations that do actually interbreed are demes and they share a gene pool. c. A metapopulation refers to a population subdivided into multiple genetically interacting demes. d. Migration among demes provides some evolutionary cohesion among this species. e. Demography is the study of the age structure, sex ratio, and growth rate of a population. f. Sponges, corals, and bryozoans are modular, consisting of colonies of identical organisms, often through asexual cloning. g. It is easier to count and measure individual or unitary animals than colonial organisms. h. Some unitary organisms such as the praying mantis reproduce by parthenogenesis. i. Most metazoans are biparental; reproduction begins a cohort of individuals born at the same time. j. Survivorship defines the age pattern of a population from birth to death of the last member (Figure 2.4). 1) Curve I, where all individuals die at the same time, occurs rarely in nature. 2) Curve II, where rate of mortality as a proportion of survivors is constant across ages, is characteristic of birds that care for their young; humans fall between a and b. 3) Curve III represents many species that produce huge numbers of young but experience rapid and sustained mortality; this explains the need for high reproductive output of many animals. 4) Populations of temperate insects may reproduce once a year, only leaving eggs to over winter. 5) Populations that reproduce while their parents are still alive and reproducing contain multiple cohorts and have an age structure (Figure 2.5). 6) Semelpatity is a condition in which an organism reproduces only once during its life history. 7) Iteroparity denotes the occurrence of more than one reproductive cycle in an organism’s life history. 2. Population Growth and Intrinsic Regulation (Figure 2.6) a. Population growth is the difference between rates of birth and death. b. Populations have the ability to grow exponentially at the intrinsic rate of increase, symbol (r). c. This forms a steeply rising curve. C. Predators and Parasites 1. Many animals and plants are in co-evolutionary relationships; each is in a race with the other. 2. If a predator relies primarily on a single prey species, the populations cycle with each other. 3. The time lag between cycles is demonstrated by laboratory work with protozoa and the snowshoe hare and lynx (Figure 2.12). 4. The predator-prey relationship has led to development of mimicry, where harmless species mimic models that have toxins or stings. 5. Another mimicry complex consists of many different species, all with noxious or toxic factors, that evolve to resemble each other (Figure 2.13). 6. A keystone species is so critical to a community that its loss causes drastic changes in the community (Figure 2.14). 7. Keystone species reduce competition and allow more species to coexist on the same resource. 8. Periodic natural disturbances also allow more species to coexist in diverse communities. 9. Ectoparasites not only secure nutrition from their host but are also dispersed by the host. 10. Endoparasites have lost ability to choose habitats and must have tremendous reproductive output to ensure that some offspring will reach another host. 11. Generally, the parasite and host co-evolve toward a less virulent relationship because the death of the host also ends or shortens a parasite’s life; exceptions occur when alternative hosts are available. 2.4 Ecosystems A. Trophic Levels and Food Webs (Figure 2.15) 1. Energy flows through organisms and is used to construct and maintain organisms at several levels. 2. Primary producers, usually green plants, fix and store energy, usually from sunlight. 3. Herbivores are the first level of consumers that eat plants. 4. Carnivores eat herbivores (forming a second level of consumer) or eat carnivores forming higher trophic levels. 5. The most important consumers are decomposers, mainly bacteria and fungi, that break dead organic matter into mineral components, returning it to a soluble form that can be reused by plants to start the cycle over again. 6. Chemical cycle is endless through the system. 7. However, energy is lost as heat and must constantly be replenished; ecosystems are open systems. B. Energy Flow 1. Every organism has an energy budget and must obtain enough energy to grow, reproduce, etc. g 2. Gross productivity (P ) is total energy assimilated or taken-in; some is used to maintain metabolism. n 3. Net productivity (P ) is energy stored in the animal’s tissue as biomass; this energy is available for growth of the animal and for reproduction of other individuals. n g 4. Energy is limited and can be represented as P = P - R where R is respiration. 5. The energy budget of every animal is finite; growth and reproduction can only occur after metabolism is accomplished. 6. Much energy is lost when it is transferred between trophic levels in food webs. 7. More than 90% of the energy in an animal’s food is lost as heat; less than 10% is stored as biomass. 8. Each succeeding trophic level contains only 10% of the energy of the next lower trophic level. 9. This 90% loss of energy between trophic levels produces ecological pyramids. 10. The Eltonian pyramid is based on numbers of individuals at each trophic level; however, many small insects may feed on one large plant. 11. A pyramid of biomass can be built on the mass of organisms at one point in time. 12. Biomass is usually pyramidal and solves the small insect—large plant dilemma. 13. A biomass pyramid may still be inverted due to food stored in a consumer over time as well as failure to measure the rapid productivity of some producers. 14. Energy pyramids encompassing the lifespan of all organisms involved show a pyramid relationship (Figure 2.16). C. Life without the Sun (BOX: Deep Sea Vent Ecosystem) 1. From 1977 to 1979, dense communities were first discovered on sea floor thermal vents. 2. The producers in these vent communities are chemoautotrophic bacteria that oxidize hydrogen sulfide. 3. The tubeworms and bivalve molluscs form trophic communities that rely on this non-photosynthetic source of nutrients D. Nutrient Cycles 1. Decomposers feed on the remains of animals and plants and return substances to the ecosystem. 2. Biogeochemical cycles involve exchanges between living organisms, rocks, air and water. 3. The continuous input of energy from the sun keeps nutrients flowing and the ecosystem functioning (Figure 2.17). 4. Water, carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen are important biochemical cycles. 5. Synthetic compounds such as pesticides are not degraded by decomposers. 6. Pesticides accumulate in top carnivores, kill nontarget species, and persist in the environment. E. Biodiversity 1. The number of species that thrive on earth is biodiversity; this number could be as high as 10 million. 2. Approximately 99% of all species that have lived are extinct. 3. At rates unprecedented in human history, we are losing biodiversity, genetic diversity, and habitat diversity. 4. Habitat fragmentation and invasive species introductions are leading causes of decreased biodiversity.