BIOL 103 Lecture Notes - Population Ecology, Logistic Function, Exponential Growth
18 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with and adapt to the environment: environment includes abiotic (rainfall, soil type) and biotic factors (competitors, predators) Population ecology is the study of how and why the number of individuals in a population changes over time or space: requires knowledge of population size and composition (sex ration, age structure, condition of individuals, etc) Population density is the number of individuals of a species per unit area at a given time. Population dispersion (spacing) gives clues about population processes and relations with local environment: clumped dispersion, uniform dispersion, random dispersion, distinguish from dispersal***** Dispersion of population members may depend on: density, interactions between conspecifics, the distribution of other species that are competitors, predators or prey, environmental features such as moisture, temperature, soil type, wind direction, etc. Two models of population growth: exponential growth (j-shaped curve)
