Final - Lecture Slides (new material only) Flashcards
5 levels of ecology
Organism, Population, Community, Ecosystem, Biosphere
Organismal ecology (def.)
Study of adaptations that influence where and in what densities organisms exist
Population (def.)
group of individuals that live in same area at the same time
Community (def.)
multiple populations that interact in a particular area
Ecosystem ecology (def.)
treats biotic and abiotic factors as part of a complex system
Global ecology (def.)
studies influences on biosphere (where living things exist on earth)
Abiotic factors (def. and 3 examples)
non-living factors that influence where organisms exist (e.g., temperature, moisture/rainfall, variability)
Biotic factors (def. and 3 examples)
Food/prey, predators/parasites, hosts/host plants, competitors
Innate behaviors
performed without prior experience but can still be influenced by experience and learning
Fixed Action Patterns (FAP)
behavioral patterns that an organism will continue until completed, once they’ve begun
What causes FAP’s to begin?
A sign stimulus
Learning (ecological definition)
An enduring change in behavior based on experience
Proximate cause
mechanistic; asks “how”
Ultimate cause
ask “why,” have to do with evolutionary influences
Tinbergen’s four questions
- Immediate stimuli: what elicits a behavior?
- Development: how does behavior change over animal’s lifetime?
- Survival function: how does a behavior affect survival and reproduction?
- Evolutionary history: how does a behavior vary over the history of the animal?
What kind of question and what perspective is each of Tinbergen’s four questions?
- Proximate and short-term
- Proximate and long-term
- Ultimate and short-term
- Ultimate and long-term
Optimality
Do animals behave the way they “should” behave?
What do “normative” models tell us?
what “should” happen, often generally
What do “descriptive” models tell us?
Try to explain what happens in a particular circumstance
How to find optimal circumstance for something
Maximize difference between benefits and costs
Definition of ecology
Study of the distribution and abundance of organisms
Functions of ornaments
Signals, often indicator traits
Anisogamy
sexual reproduction by the fusion of dissimilar gametes
Why do males compete for females?
Female gametes are a limited resource of sorts (females have big gametes; males have small gametes and a lot of them)
Ordered or uniform distribution
(Variance/Mean)
Random distribution
(Variance/Mean) = 1
Clumped distribution
(Variance/Mean)»_space; 1
-lots of variation in nearest neighbor distance
When do we expect an ordered distribution?
Individuals are directly competing or defending a territory, and resources are evenly distributed
When do we expect to see a clumped distribution?
Resources are clumped (environment is patchy), or with social animals
What does N mean for mark and recapture?
total population (what we’re trying to find out)
What does m1 mean for mark and recapture?
number in the first sample; all marked
What does n2 mean for mark and recapture?
number in second sample, total
What does m2 mean for mark and recapture?
number in second sample that were captured before
Equation to find total population for mark and recapture
N = (m1*n2)/m2
Demography (def.)
study of factors that affect size and structure of a population
What causes population growth?
births and immigration
What causes population decline?
Deaths and emigration