ENV100Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Intraspecific Competition, Interspecific Competition, Ecological Niche

• School: UTM
• Department: Environment
• Course: ENV100Y5
• Professor: Barbara Murck

Document Summary

What limits population growth, density-dependent factors = limiting factors whose influence is affected by population density, disease, parasites, competition, density-independent factors = limiting factors unrelated to population density, natural disasters, weather, climate change. Habitat: the environment in which an organism lives and functions, living and non-living components, scale depends on organism. Ecological niche: an organism"s use of resources and its functional role in a community, fundamental niche: optimal conditions, realized niche: a subset of fundamental niche due to species interactions. Habitat specialists and habitat generalists: specialists: narrow niches and very specific requirements, generalists: broad niches that can use a wide array of habitats and resources. Competition: multiple organisms seek the same limited resources. Intraspecific competition; interspecific competition: result: exclusion or coexistence, resource partitioning, species divide shared resources by specializing in different ways, avoid competition, effects, character displacement: characteristics diverge to lessen competition, overlapping characteristics are selected against.