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Quick Summary of this Document

Populations and ecosystems must know technical terms, such as the environment, biotic, abiotic, biosphere, ecosystem, population, community, habitat, and niche. Investigating populations detailed knowledge about quadrats, uses of transect, how is abundance measures, and (my favourite ) mark-release-recapture method. Variation in population size factors that are involved in the size of population and how these factors influence the population size is discussed in detail. More information on abiotic factors. Biotic factors Competition Interaspecific, Interspecific! Reason for competition. And the effect on population size. Predation the effect of predator-prey relationship of population size.

Population and Ecosystems


Bog-standard definitions Biotic: An ecological factor that makes up part of the living environment of an organism. Examples include food availability, competition and predation. Abiotic: An ecological factor that makes up part of the non-biological environment of an organism, e.g. temperature , ph., rainfall and humidity. Biosphere: life supporting layer of land, air and water that surrounds the Earth. Ecosystem: made up of all interacting biotic and abiotic features in a specific area. Population: a group of interbreeding organisms of one species in a habitat. Community: All population of different organisms living and interacting in a particular place at the same time. Habitat: place where community of organisms live. Niche: All conditions and resources required for an organism to survive, reproduce and maintain a viable population.

Investigating Populations
Quadrats This link summarises the factors that should be considered when using a quadrat.

Click here to access the document

Investigating Populations
Transects A line along which organism are sampled in ecological studies. Transects are particularly useful in situation such as sea shores and sand dunes where conditions of species vary across the area being studied. This technique is more informative to measure the abundance and distribution of a species in a systematic manner than a random manner. KITE DIAGRAMS (yay!) can be drawn using the data collected from sampling along transects. The image on the left hand side shows a typical kite diagram. And the image below represents a sampling along transects

Investigating Populations
Mark release recapture A method of estimating population size by marking a number of animals, releasing them and then counting the number of marked animals in a second sample. The method is particularly suitable for estimating the population of species that move about. It makes a number of assumptions: The number of organisms in the population does not change significantly between the time when they were captured and marked and the time when the sample was taken. This applies to births, deaths and migration The marked individuals distribute evenly in the population. Making does not affect the animals in any way such as, for example, making it more vulnerable to predators.

Variation in Population Size


Population growth curve a graph that shows the growth of a population of organism over a period of time. The diagram shows a population growth curve of yeast cells .

Lag phase During this stage, the organism do not increase in number; they are adapting to the medium in which they are growing and synthesizing enzymes. Log phase This is the period of rapid population growth. Stationary phase the population remains more or less constant. Decline phase A shortage of food or build up for toxic waste products or for larger animals predation and competing lead to the death of many organism.

Abiotic Factors
Temperature for cold blooded animals, temperature below optimum leads to slower enzyme reactions and metabolic rate in body. The population therefore grow more slowly. At temperature above the optimum the enzymes are denatured. Again the population grows slowly. The need to maintain a constant body temperature for warm blooded animals. So more energy is spend in maintenance of constant body temperature. This leaves less for individual growth. So they mature slowly and their reproduction rate slows. Therefore the population is smaller. Light The rate of photosynthesis increases as light intensity increases. The faster the rate of photosynthesis, the faster plants grow and the more spores or seeds they produce. Their population growth and size is therefore potentially greater. In turn, the population of animals that feed on animal is larger. pH (Enzyme controlled reactions) the population of organisms is larger where the appropriate pH exists and smaller or non-existent where the pH is very different from the optimum.

Biotic Factors - Competition


Interaspecific Competition between organism of the same species. The availability of resources that determine the size of a population. The greater the availability , the larger the population. The lower the availability the smaller the population.

Interspecific Competition between organisms of different species. Where populations of two species initially occupy the same niche, one will have competitive advantage over the other. The population of this species will gradually increase in population where the other will decline in population. If conditions remain the same, this will lead to the complete removal of one species. This is known as competitive exclusion principle.

Predation
Click here to access the PowerPoint on Predators

Click here to watch the first video

Click here to watch the second video

References
A-Z handbook 4th edition Biology by Bill Indge. ISBN 978-0-340-99099-5. AQA AS Biology Nelson thrones by Glenn & Susan Toole. ISBN 978-07487-8275-8. http://www.transect.org/transect.html - the transect. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/keith.balmer/BedsButts/html/DOB.htm - Duke of Burgundy (Hamearis lucina)

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