Practical 5 Understanding Population Trends Introduction Population growth is the change in population size (N) over time, and

this is determined by births, deaths, immigration and emigration, Population growth can be modelled by a geometric curve (that is, a non-linear curve). This will be either an Sshaped (sigmoidal) curve or an exponential curve. If the population size doubles between each time interval then this form of geometric growth is called exponential growth. Studies of both short-lived and long-lived organisms have indicated that population growth, and therefore the form and shape of population growth curves, is ultimately controlled by three factors:

1. The initial population size (N0) 2. A population growth factor (R) which measures the rate at which a population would grow if it had unlimited resources 3. The carrying capacity (K), which is determined by environmental factors.

Population are dynamic and change in response to environmental stress or change in environmental conditions. They change in size, density, dispersion, and age distribution. These changes occur in response to environmental stress and change in environmental conditions.

The limits of population growth are births, deaths, immigrations, and emigration. The population change [population change = (births + immigration) (deaths + emigration)] Population vary their capacity for growth, also known as biotic potential of the population. Biotic potential is represented the letter r when used in mathematical equations. The biotic potential is an ability of populations of a given species to increase in size. The factors contributing the biotic factors are the reproductive rate, generalized niche, ability to migrate or disperse adequate defense mechanisms and ability to cope

with adverse conditions. Characteristics of individuals in population with a high intrinsic rate of increase: reproduce early in life, have short generation times, can reproduce many times, and have many offspring g each time they reproduce. The intrinsic rate of increase of many species depends on having a certain minimum population size.

The environmental resistance is an ability of populations of a given species to increase in size. This consists of all the factors acting jointly to limit the growth of a population. Together the biotic potential and environmental resistance determine the carrying capacity (K), the number of individuals of given species that can be sustained indefinitely in a given space. The factors contributing the biotic are low reproductive rate, specialized niche, inability to migrate or disperse inadequate defense mechanisms and inability to cope with adverse conditions.

Task 1 Task 1 What type of population growth does Rhinoceros have, and why are the final population sizes different?

Population estimates for two populations of rhinoceros in the same environment, over 5 time intervals (5 generations).

Time interval (t) = generation

Rhinoceros Population A

Rhinoceros Population B

Pop size (N) 0 1 2 3 4 5 Geometric Mean N0 = 30 58 123 236 484 955

Growth factor (R)

Pop size (N) N0 = 20

Growth factor (R)

1.9 2.1 1.9 2.1 2.0 =2

39 82 161 318 643

2.0 2.1 2.0 2.0 2.0 =2

Table 1.0 Comparison of population size of Rhinoceros A and B.

The Rhinoceros population growth

1200

1000 955

800 Population Size (N)

Rhinoceros Population A 643

600

Rhinoceros Population B 484

400 318 236 200 161 58 39 1 123 82

Geometri c Mean = 2

30 20 0

3 Time Intervals (t)

Graph1.0 Shows the population growth curves for both populations on the same axis.

Question: Check the three factors that influence population growth. Why is there a difference in population size between these two populations at time interval 5 ? Is it due to differences in initial population size, the growth factor, or the environment ? Answer: The factor that influence population growth are the factor of initial population size of each rhinoceros type. The rhinoceros population A have the more initial population size compare to the rhinoceros population B. As shown in Table 1.0, we can see that the growth factor for both

Rhinoceros populations are quite constant and they also have the same geometric mean which is 2 and even the rate of the breeding of the two Rhinoceros populations are the same. Population A has more initial population size which will affect the population A different more from population size B. Hence, both of the Rhinoceros populations are living in the same area so we can say the environment factor should be the same and this also would not affect much on their growth for both populations. Task 2 Task 2: What type of population growth does the Koala have, and why are the final population sizes different?

Population estimates for two koala populations in the same environment over 5 time intervals (5 generations) Time interval (t) = generation Pop size (N) 0 1 2 3 4 5 Geometric Mean N0 = 20 36 63 118 212 375 1.8 1.8 1.9 1.8 1.8 =1.8 Growth factor (R) Pop size (N) N0 = 20 31 47 66 103 150 1.6 1.5 1.4 1.6 1.5 =1.5 Growth factor (R) Koala Population A Koala Population B

Table 2.0 Comparison of population size of Koala A and B.

The Koala population growth

400 375 350

Geometric mean= 1.8

300

250 Population Size (N)

212 200 Koala Population A Koala Population B 150 150

118 100 103

Geometric mean= 1.5

63 50 36 31 20 0 0 1 2 47

66

3 Time Intervals (t)

Graph 2.0 the population growth curves for both Koala populations on the same axis.

Question: What type of growth does each of the koala populations show: exponential or sigmoid? Answer: The koala populations show exponential curve. Question: For the two koala populations, why is there a difference in population size at time interval 5?Is it due to differences in initial population size, the growth factor, or the environment? Answer: The differences in population size between the two Koala populations at time interval 5 are due to the second factors, the growth factor. Population A has higher growth factor than Population B where the geometric means of them are 1.8 and 1.5 respectively. Hence Population A has higher population growth.

As shown in Table 2.0, we noted that the initial population size for both Koala Population A and B are the same that are 20, and so it is not the main factor which will affect the further population growth. Beside that, both of the Koala populations are living in the same area and so the environment factor should be the same and this also would not give much influenced to their growth.

Question: In Table 2, if the data for koala population A were for the same, but under plentiful rainfall conditions, and the data for koala population B were for drought conditions, why might the populations show a change in the growth factor (R) ? Remember that the growth factor R = Births Deaths. Answer: Population A birth rate is higher than population B but the overall both birth rate must be higher than death rate.However, Population B could not adapt themselves well in the drought conditions and so the death rate is higher than the birth rate, so the R is low.

Task 3 Task 3 What type of population growth does Zebra have, and how does carrying capacity affect the final population size?

Population estimates for two Zebra populations in different environments over ten time intervals (generations). Time interval (t) = generation Pop size (N) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Geometric Mean N0 = 20 80 230 400 500 550 580 590 595 600 600 4.0 2.9 1.7 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 =1.4 Table 3.0 Comparison of population size of Zebra A and B Growth factor (R) Pop size (N) N0 = 20 50 100 220 360 460 520 550 570 580 600 2.5 2.0 2.2 1.6 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0 =1.4 Growth factor (R) Zebra Population A Zebra Population B

The Zebra population growth

700

600 580 550 520 500 500 460 Population Size (N)

600 600 590 595 580 570 550

400

400 360 Zebra Population A

300 Zebra Population B 230 200 220

100 80 50 20 0 0

100

6 Time Intervals (t)

10

12

Graph 3.0 Shows the population growth curves for both Zebra populations on the same axis.

Question: What types of growth do each of the populations show: exponential or sigmoidal?

Answer: Both of the zebra populations show sigmoidal curve. Question: Which population, A or B, has the highest growth factor? Answer: Both population A and population B have the same growth factor. Furthermore both of this population also have the same geometric mean.

Question: Is the growth factor (R) constant ? Describe any changes that occur in R. Answer: Population A and population B have no major different on their growth factor one to another. The differences of R can we see from the beginning population A have a big number of the population growth which is 4.0 compare to the population B 2.5. But this value finally same at the ten intervals which is 1.0.

Question: What is the carrying capacity (K or the asymptote of the curve) for each population? Answer: The carrying capacity is the maximum capacity that the environment can bear the population. From this graph, the carrying capacity will be happen when it reach the constant value on this sigmoid graph which approximately population at 600. The definition of K is the limiting value of the population that can be supported in a particular environment is called its carrying capacity and is designated K. The K is t intervals, so the carrying capacity for population A is K=9th interval and population B is K=10th interval.

Task 4 Task 4 How does competition between two populations of Zebra affect the carrying capacity?

Population estimates for two populations in the same location over ten time intervals (generations). Time interval (t) = Population A generation Pop size (N) Growth (R) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Geometric Mean N0 = 20 90 220 340 410 440 450 450 440 460 450 4.5 2.4 1.5 1.2 1.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 =1.4 Table 4.0 Comparison of population size of Zebra A and B. N0 = 20 50 120 210 260 260 230 200 170 150 150 2.5 2.5 1.8 1.2 1.0 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.0 =1.2 factor Pop size (N) Growth (R) factor Population B

The Zebra population growth

500

450

440 410

450

450

460 440

450

Geometric mean =1.4

400

350

340

Population Size (N)

300

250 220 200

260

260 230 Zebra Population A 200 170 Zebra Population B 150 150

210

150 120 100 90

Geometric mean = 1.2

50 20 0 0

50

6 Time Intervals (t)

10

12

Graph 4.0 The population growth curves for both Koala populations on the same axis.

Question: What type of growth do each of the Zebra populations show: exponential or sigmoidal? Answer: The Zebra population show sigmoidal. Question: Which population, A or B, has the highest growth factor? Answer: Population A has the highest growth factor. Question: Is the growth factor (R) constant ? Describe any changes that occur in R. Answer: From the beginning the growth factor (R) did not constant. Population A have constant value of R when it reach the six intervals. Population B reach the constant R start in interval six but in the intervals ten the R value add up 0.1 to 1.0. Therefore, the both population have the different growth factor. Both of the population did not have the same R for the very beginning. But population A start constant at 7th interval and population B at 9th interval. The R for both populations was keep decreasing from higher values to the lower one until it became 1 then it went constant. Question: Has the carrying capacity (K or the asymptote of the curve) for population A changed? If so, in what way? Answer: The definition of K is the limiting value of the population that can be supported in a particular environment is called its carrying capacity and is designated K. Yes, the population A carrying capacity has changed because the competition between both population effects the carrying capacity. The K is t intervals, so the carrying capacity for population A is K=9th interval and population B is K=10th interval. Question: Both zebra populations had the same initial population size. Why has one population out-competed the other? Check the three factors that control population growth.

Answer: The growth factor of Population A is higher than Population which its geometric mean is 1.4 which is 0.2 higher than Population B. Hence, Population A has higher rate in breeding.

Question: If the data in Table 3 are for the two populations living separately, and in Table 4 for the same populations living together, what has been the effect of competition on R for both zebra populations? Answer: The effect of competition on R for both zebra populations is both of the populations will reach to the value of R which is quite closer to each other.

Report 1. What is the difference between exponential and and logistic (sigmoidal) growth? Exponential is the graph that is no limit and the sigmoidal growth have the limiting factor.

2. How do populations gain and lose individuals? The population gain and lose individuals by birth, death and immigration. Animal populations change over time due to births, deaths, and the dispersal of individuals between separate populations. When resources are plentiful and environmental conditions appropriate, populations can increase rapidly.

3. What are the characteristics of a population which has a high intrinsic rate of increase? The characteristic is the population can adapt very fast and well to the environment changed. Mostly, this kind of populations are small in their body shape and so they will only have to take less time to adapt themselves to live in the new environment. Besides that, such parents have as many offspring as possible by starting early and quickly repeating breeding. Then the young needs less parental care and has short life span. Another characteristic are high immigration and low emigration of the population that may cause the intrinsic rate increase.

4. What are the environmental factors which act to (1) increase population growth and (2) decrease population growth ? The environmental factors are supplier of foods, temperature, humidity and also space or territory of the population in their own habitat. All of these environmental factors actually also contribute to the decreases of the population growth if there are lack some of the factors. The destruction of the habitat will also causes the decrease population growth. Beside that if the population breeding is not succeed because of the unsupported environmental condition, it also will effect the population growth later. Some environmental and biological factors can influence a population differently depending on its density. If population density is high, such factors become increasingly limiting on the success of the population. For example, if individuals are cramped in a small area, disease may spread faster than it would if population density were low. Factors that are affected by population density are referred to as density-dependent factors.

5. What happens if the population size exceeds the carrying capacity? If population size exceed carrying capacity K- population growth decline, population size will drop or decrease. 6. Carrying capacity (K) can vary from year to year (see Miller 2001 figure 7.5). In some years K is high and in some years it is low due to unpredictable changes in environmental conditions. Commercial exploitation of populations, such as harvesting fish or deer, relies on the harvest of a known proportion of the population. For example, commercial fishermen are licensed to take a certain weight of fish (their quota) each year. The quota is determined by dividing the total biomass or weight of the population that is available for harvest, by the number of fishermen (or licenses). Given this, why is a random change in K from year to year a problem for management of commercially exploited wild populations?

When random change in carrying capacity K, management cannot predict how weight of population that still available for harvest in that particular year. So there are probability that the management had already give over licensed to the commercial fisherman.

7. Your Minisrty sells 10 licenses for deer harvesting each year, and commercial harvesting of deer is based on 20% of the population at carrying capacity (that is each quota is 2% of the population). Now that you understand the concept of carrying capacity and population growth, what will you do if there is a good season and deer populations for the next season are predicted to overshoot carrying by 20 % ? In my opinion, if there is a good season and deer populations for the next season are predicted to overshoot carrying by 20%, I will not give more licenses for the deer commercial harvesting because I think the 20% of the populations that will be kill before is more than enough. We should not be to greedy to take the advantage because maybe the couple year later there are no breeding of the deer offspring and the population decreases. It will cause problems to us to settle it when we have to face the mother nature that unpredictable. References:

1. 2.

Raven, Peter H. (2002). Biology. McGraw Hill Higher Education, New York. Cambell, Reece & Mitchell. (2003).Biology Concepts and Connections (fourth edition) .Benjamin Cumming, San Francisco.

3. 4. 5. 6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity http://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/carrying-capacity.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth http://animals.about.com/cs/zoology/a/zoo101ae.htm