Chapter 8: Properties of Populations

11/05/2015

A population is a group of individuals of the same species that inhabit

a given area and are able to interbreed
Populations have structure:
o Density
o Spacing
o Age distribution
Populations are dynamic, changing over time
o When populations crashes, what has happened? The
environment is changing, lost, disappearing; disease?
Huge shift in population = invasive species
Organisms may be unitary or modular
Unitary organisms exists as individuals
Modular organism, the zygote develops into a module, a unit of
construction
o Plants are modular
- Cut basil plants right above starter leaves and above the nodes
Stolon and Rhizome
Reproduction in Plants
Suckers many stems that sprout from surface roots and may
appear to be individuals
Genet plant produced by sexual reproduction, a genetic individual
Ramet plant produced asexually; an ecological unit
Clones and Parent trees communicate through each other in their root
systems underground; can also spread disease through roots as well
Individual = genet

Module = ramet
Both of the individual and module must be recognized; therefore
ramets are often counted as individual members of the population
The distribution of a population defines its spatial location
Determine areas where individuals are present and where they are
absent
Map the position of each individual
The geographic range of a species encompasses all of the
individuals of a species
Individuals are found in suitable habitats within that geographic
range
This range is limited by tolerance to different environmental
conditions, including soil moisture, temperature, etc
Ubiquitous species have a geographically widespread distribution
Endemic species have a geographically restricted distribution
Why we care? They have a lot of biodiversity but if we wipe out an
area, the plant will go extinct
We want to know where they are to not lose the biodiversity
There are many types of geographic barriers that reduce or prevent
individuals from moving and colonizing new areas
Bodies of water, including rivers
Mountains
Large areas of unsuitable habitat such as deserts
Interactions with other species can also serve as barriers
Competition
Predation
Range
Individuals not distributed equally across a geographic range

Suitable habitat within that range

o Distribution of how organism is in the landscape influences
the way you count the organism and figure out the population
Metapopulations
Collection of local subpopulations
Ecologists can only study a small population
Subpopulations are spatially separated but connected by the
movement of individuals
Metapopulation is to take all the subpopulations and do a statistical
analysis and look at overall picture
Accrue density
Number of individuals per unit area
Abundance = # of individuals in the population
Population density: = # of individual/area
Distribution
In a clumped distribution, individuals are found in groups
The most common spatial distribution is CLUSTERS
o Suitable habitat or resources found in patches
Nearly Regular distribution = good estimate of landscape from
anywhere you sample
Ecological density the number of individuals per unit of
available living space
o Only look at areas where animals can live
Determining Density Requires Sampling
Population (abundance)
o Population density x the area occupied

A complete count may be possible if both the abundance and area

occupied are small, or if an area is very open so that all individuals
can be seen
Often times organisms are cryptic
Citizen Scientists
It is impossible to take complete census of a highly mobile animal
Geo-referencing = identify where sightings are made, can reveal
changes in the distribution
Secchi a secchi disk tool to measure water turbidity
o Depth is then recorded on the app and uploaded to a
database
o Can give a number count of how many plankton is distributed
in that location
Random Sampling = have bias for the sample of your species so
reduce sampling is to have random sampling and as many sample sizes
Common method:
Mark-recapture = is the most commonly used technique to measure
animal population size
HOW DOES IT WORK?
o Capture an organism and mark it, release them back into te
habitat; give enough time to intermingle and come back and
capture the organism again
o If you find 4 marked ones then you can use a proportion and
figure out approximately how many are found in the
population
Proportion:
o N = total population
o M = initially capture and marked
o S = captured animal on second visit
o R = number of individuals marked on second capture
Assumptions:
No effect of marking on probability of recapture

 Mixing of marked and unmarked mix into the entire population

Capture individuals are representative of the whole population
Marks are not lost
Measure of population structure including age, developmental stage,
and size
Abundance does not provide information about age structure
A population with overlapping generations has an age structure
o There are individuals in different age classes
Populations can be dividing into three ecologically important age
classes
o Pre-reproductive
o Reproductive
o Post-reproductive
- age is hard to measure in animals so we measure via size to judge
the age
the most accurate method is to mark young individuals in a
population and follow their survival through time; this is expensive
and takes a lot of resources
o many individuals must be marked and subsequently checked
at regular intervals, often over many years
trees with seasonal growth produce annual growth rings
dendrochronology counting annual growth rings to determine
the age of a tree
size of the tree based on diameter at breast height (dbh)
recent studies suggest that there are annual growth rings in the
roots that can be used to provide information of its age
How do you trees die if you dont cut it down?
Starts to show distress
As it gets older and closer to an age; starts to give off hormones
that show signs of distress, then fungus comes and starts to digest
the tree and it starts to rot inside out

 Then the tree eventually falls out

Sex ratios in population may shift with age
In birds, over time the number of males tends to be higher than
females
o Nesting females are more susceptible to attack and predation
Individuals move within the population
Dispersal is the movement of individuals in space
o Emigration = when individuals leave a subpopulation
o Immigration = when individuals enter a population
Many organisms disperse passively
- animals can be important dispersers of plant seeds
dispersed when an animal eats the fruit
wind carries the young of spiders
water carries the larvae of invertebrates downstream
active dispersal in mobile animals may occur in any age class or sex
o in birds, most dispersal occurs in the young
- migration is movement of organisms that is round-trip
Invasive Species
Dispersal can affect the spatial distribution or can establish a new
subpopulation in a previously unoccupied habitat
Species introduced into an area where they did not previously live
can expand into new areas if they expand in exponential way they
often become invasive
These introductions may be intentional or unintentional
Example: Asian Longhorned Beetle
How have humans aided in the dispersal of many species around
the world?
o World cargo shipping lanes