Behavioral Ecology
Population Ecology
Community Ecology
Final Jeopardy
100
when a predator is in the presence of a town of prairie dogs, one prairie dog will let out an alarm call to alert the rest of the town to take cover. give an explanation for this behavior.
kin selection; the town is more likely to survive if one prairie dog draws attention to itself away from the town
100
what do r and dN/dt represent?
r represents per capita growth rate, dN/dt represents population growth rate
100
According to the competitive exclusion principle, two species cannot occupy the same _____.
Niche; a niche is the ecological role of a species, or the set of conditions, resources, and interactions necessary for survival
200
birds use vision to find patches of food and groups of the same species.
is this a proximate or ultimate hypothesis?
proximate (an example of an ultimate hypothesis would be group foraging allows more time to forage while others detect predators. the more birds in a group, the less chance they have of being eaten by a predator)
200
describe an instance when the carrying capacity of a population could change
changing seasons, natural disaster, human activity
200
What is a collection of organisms that belong to different populations but all live in the same area and interact with each other?
Community
300
imagine you’re a beekeeper located in eugene, and you’re checking on your bees at 8:00am. you open a hive and observe a worker bee performing a waggle dance on the hive’s vertical face. after watching for a while, you determine that each waggle lasts about 5 seconds and is pointed straight down.
what direction was the flower patch located that the bee was waggling for, and approximately how far away was the flower patch that she was foraging in?
west, 5 km
300
where is per capita growth rate the lowest in an exponential model?
trick question: the per capita growth rate stays the same in an exponential growth model
300
In a given meadow, deer eat both invasive plant species and native plant species.
A. What is the name of the interaction between the deer and both plant species?
B. What type of competition is occurring between the invasive and native plants?
A. consumption of plants by deer
B. apparent competition - two plant types competing over survival from the deer predator
400
how many of her own offspring would a worker bee need to raise to get the same indirect fitness benefit as raising 15 of her sisters that had a different dad and 7 of her sisters that had the same dad?
18 offspring
400
what causes growth rate to decline when population increases in size?
density dependent limiting factors - effect depends on population size and have the potential to cause growth rate decline as population increases
examples - competition, predation, food, disease, and parasitism
400
Synthetic fertilizers cause excess resources in groundwater, which runs off into oceans and causes harmful algal blooms. Daphnia are an aquatic species which feed on algae. Zooplanktivore feed on the Daphnia. Conservationists propose the introduction of Piscivores, which eat the Zooplanktivores as means for control of the algae. Is this bottom up or top down control methods and why?
top down - adding a predator to control Zooplanktivore population, which would increase algal feeding Daphnia
500
describe what each variable represents in the expression br>c, and what this expression means in terms of evolution.
b=benefit (# offspring produced) to recipient
c=cost (# offspring not produced) to altruist
r=coefficient of relatedness (how close the altruist and recipient are related)
when br>c, a gene coding for cooperation evolves
500
A population of ladybugs has a carrying capacity of 500 and an r of 0.1 individuals/individual*month. What is the maximum possible growth rate for the population?
max growth rate occurs at K/2; K = 500, so N = 250
DN/dt = rN[1-(N/K)]
= .1(250)[1-(250/500)]
= 12.5 individuals/month
500
Niche differentiation is realized when niche overlap becomes costly to the species. What are the differences between the fundamental and realized niches?
fundamental niche = niche that could theoretically be occupied by a species, large, no limiting factors
realized niche = portion of the fundamental niche, post competition that the species actually occupies, small
500
An ecologists is looking at a population of Karner blue butterflies. The ecologist proposes an experiment where they will assess the Karner blue butterfly population in the presence of wild Lupine and without the presence. Wild lupine is a plant suspected to coexist well with the butterfly. What type of ecologist may plan this experiment?
Community ecologist - looking as interactions between the plant and butterfly