Population Dynamics - W
hat effect can one species have on the other species in a
community?
- investigate and determine relationships between biotic and abiotic factors in an
ecosystem, including:
- the impact of abiotic factors
- the impact of biotic factors, including predation, competition and symbiotic
relationships
- the ecological niches occupied by species
- predicting consequences for populations in ecosystems due to predation,
competition, symbiosis and disease
- measuring populations of organisms using sampling techniques
- explain a recent extinction event
Past Ecosystems - H
ow do selection pressures within an ecosystem influence evolutionary
change?
- analyse palaeontological and geological evidence that can be used to provide
evidence for past changes in ecosystems, including but not limited to:
- Aboriginal rock paintings
- rock structure and formation
- ice core drilling
- investigate and analyse past and present technologies that have been used to
determine evidence for past changes, for example:
- radiometric dating
- gas analysis
- analyse evidence that present-day organisms have evolved from organisms in the
past by examining and interpreting a range of secondary sources to evaluate
processes, claims and conclusions relating to the evolution of organisms in Australia,
for example:
- small mammals
- sclerophyll plants
- investigate the reasons for changes in past ecosystems, by:
- interpreting a range of secondary sources to develop an understanding of the
changes in biotic and abiotic factors over short and long periods of time
- evaluating hypotheses that account for identified trends
Future Ecosystems - H
ow can human activity impact on an ecosystem?
- investigate changes in past ecosystems that may inform our approach to the
management of future ecosystems, including:
- the role of human-induced selection pressures on the extinction of species
- models that humans can use to predict future impacts on biodiversity
- the role of changing climate on ecosystems
- investigate practices used to restore damaged ecosystems, Country or Place, for
example:
- mining sites
- land degradation from agricultural practices
investigate and determine relationships between biotic and abiotic factors in an
ecosystem, including:
✏ E
cosystem - All biotic and abiotic factors in an area
- Many different sizes
- Contains many habitats
- All biotic and abiotic factors d epend on each other t o survive
- Self contained system - little energy flowing in or out of it
- All thanks to photosynthesis woot woot
- Always changing
✏ C ommunity - a ll the populations of species living in the same place at the same time
✏ E cological niche - r ole of an organism in its environment
- Where it lives AND w hat it does there. d
on’t forget the and
- How it obtains energy, how it interacts with other species and its environment.
✏ P opulation size - number of organisms from the same species in a habitat
- the impact of abiotic factors
✏ Temperature
Each species has an optimum temperature lololol. The further the habitat is from this
temperature, the lower carrying capacity
- Ectotherms (cannot control their internal temperature) - their enzymes can slow
down or denature
- Endotherms (can control their internal temperature) - must spend energy in
maintaining their temperature, so less energy is used for growth and reproduction
✏ Light
All energy from an ecosystem
- So.. more light → more photosynthesis → more plants’ carrying capacity → more
animals’ carrying capacity
✏ pH
Deviations from it cause enzymes to denature, blah blah yep
✏ Water availability and humidity
Usually the more water the better but not always ya
The more humid, the less evaporation and transpiration
- Any deviation will result in smaller carrying capacity
- the impact of biotic factors, including predation,
✏ Population growth curves
- Stage 1 - individuals acclimatise and reproduce, getting used to their ew life,
increase is slow
- Stage 2 - If the individual birth numbers exceed the flamingo death numbers, the
rate will increase. Generally, this happens lol, since they keep reproducing, having a
few kids each
- Stage 3 - rate slows down, as the population has outgrown habitat resources.
- Stage 4 - rate plateaus, birth and death rates cancel each other out nicely and
population size reaches carrying capacity.
✏ Carrying capacity - Maximum stable population size that can be maintained over a period
of time in a habitat. Different for each species in their particular habitat
- Harder to reproduce, the smaller carrying capacity.
competition and
✏ Interspecific competition - organisms from different species compete
- It affects population size, as the animals have to share the food sources, then the
distribution of the species
- Since there is less food being consumed by a species, there is less energy for
growth and reproduction, so the population size will be smaller of each
- Depends which one is bigger, which is better adapted
✏ Intraspecific competition - organisms from the same species compete
- More common than interspecific
- if u zoom in
- More individuals compete and use all the resources
- The resources become insufficient for everyone and the population
……………..decreases
- Competition is reduced, population increases
- Last 2 steps repeat a lot
symbiotic relationships
Symbiosis - close, prolonged relationship between organisms of different species
- Living and functioning together
- At leats one organism is benefited
✏ Mutualism
- Both organisms are benefited
- Humans and bacteria - food is broken down, and the bacteria have shelter and food
✏ Commensalism
- One is benefitted, one isn’t affected
- Barnacles and whales
✏ Parasitism
- One is benefited, one is harmed
- Dog and tick
✏ Ammensalism ( NOT SYMBIOTIC) no one is benefitted
- One is unaffected, one is harmed
- Big tree casting shade on smaller tree
- Competition is a type of this
✏ Symbiotic relationships aren’t fixed - too many barnacles can slow down a whale, and
make the relationship parasitic
- the ecological niches occupied by species
Ecological niche- determined by its habitat, feeding relationship and interaction with other
species
- An organism adapts to fit its niche
- Two species cannot occupy the same niche, because they will compete against each
other
- The better suited organism will keep the niche, and the lesser suited
organism will adapt to another niche or become locally extinct
-
- They occupy a similar niche
- predicting consequences for populations in ecosystems due to predation,
competition, symbiosis and disease
✏ Predator prey graph
- The lemming population increases, so stoat also does bc it has more food
- This increase will keep going till there’s another limiting factor, like too many stoats
are eating so there are less lemmings born.
- Then the stoats also decrease bc less food sad
- Pattern repeats every 4 years
- Stoat population is always lower than lemmings
- Like stats is lagging from lemmings
✏ Limitations
- Organisms normally feed on a variety of things, this only shows the relationship of it
with one food source
- Other things might affect types of population like climate and disease
- Availability of food for prey might affect the prey’s numbers
- Difficult to study in the wild
- In a lab, you can’t replicate their habitats or environmental conditions, so the
predator always wins
- measuring populations of organisms using sampling techniques
Representative sampling- accurately affecting the entire population being investigated
✏ Abundance- Number of individuals in a particular species in a particular area (size of a
population).
✏ Distribution- way a population is spread in an area
✏ Quadrats - you can either:
- Count individuals of each species in each square
- Find the percentage cover of each species, by counting how many squares have at
least 1 of that species
- Using them to measure abundance
- Place quadrats randomly
- Measure percentage or number of individuals of a species in the quadrat
- Repeat as many times as possible
- Average them, and you get how many individuals you get per quadrat
- Convert your measurement to the whole grid, so if your quadrats at 1m2 and
the grid is 50m2, multiply by 50. Boom, abundance in the area
- Using them to measure distribution with the help of Transects!
- Use above method, except place quadrats side by side (Belt transect)
- Use above method, except place quadrats at regular intervals to save time
and cover longer distances (Interrupted transect)
✏ Line transects
- Tape measure is laid along the transect, number of organisms touching it is recorded
✏ Mark-release-recapture
- Set up a trap to capture a particular species
- Count number of species in it, and mark them harmlessly
- Release them
- Set up another trap another time, and repeat, also noting the number of marked
animals
- Then use the lincoln index, we haven’t learned this oop
explain a recent extinction event
Local extinction- population dies out in an area
Global extinction- no individuals exist in the world
✏ The likelihood of an organism adaptation is dependent on its GENETIC DIVERSITY (the
VARIATION OF ALLELES IN A GENE POOL).
- Lower genetic diversity, lower chance of survival
- HIGH genetic diversity means greater variation in alleles, so better chance of survival
in general, in case anything happens
- LOW genetic diversity means that the population has very similar genetics, and if the
disease affects one of them, its likely to affect all of them
- As the population of a species decreases, genetic diversity is slowly lost, since
there’s a lower probability of that type being alive.
- Tasmanian devil - ice age and severe climatic events dramatically reduced
their population, and consequently their genetic diversity lowered
- Became endangered because a disease affected them and since they all ahve
similar genetics, they could all die out. We have to just hope one will develop
a nice mutation against it
analyse palaeontological and geological evidence that can be used to provide
evidence for past changes in ecosystems, including but not limited to:
- Aboriginal rock paintings
✏ Aboriginal rock paintings contribute to the study of past ecosystems because they
usually depict the most abundant animals that were present in an area, at the time the
painting was created.
- This gives us an idea of the distribution and abundance of organisms that were
present at that time.
- For example, we can conclude that an animal very similar to Tasmanian devil used to
exist in Arnhem land 1500-20,000 years ago because they are shown in rock
paintings dated to this time in this area.
- rock structure and formation
- Igneous rock is formed when magma cools and crystallises. Most igneous rocks form
on the ocean floor at mid-ocean ridges. So the presence of igneous rock in a
particular location is a good indicator that either a volcano erupted there, or that it
was once covered by ocean.
- Sedimentary rock is formed when small particles of sediment are compacted into
layers which accumulate over time. Sedimentary rock preserves fossils and is unique
depending on the surrounding environment. For example, the Sydney area is mainly
composed of two different types of sedimentary rock: sandstone and shale.
- Metamorphic rock is formed when rock is exposed to high pressure or temperature.
It differs from igneous rock because it i sn’t formed from magma. Instead,
metamorphic rocks often begin as sedimentary rocks, which then experience
pressure and/or temperature due to volcanic eruptions or the movement of tectonic
plates.
- As rock is exposed to climatic events and weather conditions such as rain, wind,
snow and ice, it can become weathered. This is essentially where small particles of
rock are gradually removed from the main body.
- It takes a long time, but weathering can eventually form rivers, glaciers and cliffs.
Even once these rivers have dried up and these glaciers have melted, we can still
identify the characteristic rock shapes they left behind.
- ice core drilling
The different layers in an ice core act as a timeline: the ice closest to the surface is the
youngest ice, and the ice furthest away is the oldest.
Biological remains can be preserved in ice for long periods of time. This means that
scientists can extract biotic factors, such as pollen and microbes, from thousands of years
ago.
investigate and analyse past and present technologies that have been used to
determine evidence for past changes, for example:
- radiometric dating
✏ Measuring the age of rocks by seeing how much a particular atom has decayed
- Fossils- We can date fossils and use them to identify the characteristics of the
organisms they represent. From this, we can suggest the selective pressures that
drove the particular adaptations of the fossilised organism.
- gas analysis
We can also use gas analysis to analyse bubbles of air trapped in ice cores in order to
determine the composition of the earth’s atmosphere at a particular time. Scientists use a
piece of equipment called a mass spectrometer to identify the chemicals in the atmosphere.
analyse evidence that present-day organisms have evolved from organisms in the
past by examining and interpreting a range of secondary sources to evaluate
processes, claims and conclusions relating to the evolution of organisms in Australia,
for example:
- small mammals
- sclerophyll plants
investigate the reasons for changes in past ecosystems, by:
- interpreting a range of secondary sources to develop an understanding of the
changes in biotic and abiotic factors over short and long periods of time
- evaluating hypotheses that account for identified trends
investigate changes in past ecosystems that may inform our approach to the
management of future ecosystems, including:
- the role of human-induced selection pressures on the extinction of species
✏ Habitat destruction
✏ Introduced species
✏ Overexploitation
✏ Pollution
✏ Climate change
- models that humans can use to predict future impacts on biodiversity
- the role of changing climate on ecosystems
investigate practices used to restore damaged ecosystems, Country or Place, for
example:
- mining sites
- land degradation from agricultural practices
