Revision Qs Flashcards
Explain why patterns of niche/resource partitioning and character displacement
provide evidence for the importance of competition in community assembly. How are these patterns related to one another? [5]
You’re a park manager tasked with managing an artificial freshwater lake for recreational use. Your main objective is to achieve adequate water clarity to encourage use
(swimming, water-skiing, etc), while maintaining a functioning biological community. This ultimately entails managing the lake phytoplankton (photosynthetic microbes) that turn the water green when they occur at high densities. From previous work you know that the main food chain in the lake food-web is phytoplankton – zooplankton – planktivorous fish’ and that it is top-down controlled.
a) What management intervention (based on food-web theory) would drastically improve the water quality in the lake? Motivate your suggestion, explaining the mechanism by which the intervention would achieve reduced phytloplankton population densities in the lake. NB: you aim to maintain a functioning ecosystem, so poisoning/chlorinating the lake is not an option [5].
b) If the previous studies are wrong and this food chain is actually bottom-up controlled, briefly describe the management
interventions that might be needed, and explain how they would achieve reduced phytoplankton densities [5].
