Chapter 10 - Population Ecology Flashcards
What are the three types of population dispersal? Give one example for each.
Clumped (caribou), uniform (trees in forest), and random (dandilions).
What is a metapopulation?
A population that is not always taking up all of the space available to them. An example is caribou, they move around.
What is a source-sink population?
This population breeds at the source, but do not remain there, they move to the “sink,” where they also die.
What are two ways in which plants disperse?
Coconuts that grow next to water, where coconuts are washed away onto other islands where they grow new trees.
Some plants also have seeds that stick to fur and clothes next to paths, where they are carried by other beings further along the path, where new trees can grow from the seeds.
What are the 2 imput and 2 output factors of population demography?
Immigration and births are imput.
Emigration and deaths are output.
Describe the generation time vs body size curve.
This curve is a log scale, where generally, bigger organisms have longer generations than smaller organisms. Humans are exceptions, as they are rather small but live very long lives.
Length of generation is determined by how quickly you are able to reproduce.
What are survivorship curves?
Curves that describe how likely individuals are to die as a function of the percentage of their maximum life span.
Some species have more risk of death very early in their live span, as they are vulnerable soon after birth, but after, they become more resistant to predators or disease for example.
What is the difference between logistic growth and geometric growth?
Geometric growth describes the biotic potential, which is how fast a population could grow if there were no limits to their growth.
Logistic growth is dependant on the density of the population, which is why the population size settles at its carrying capacity.
