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Focus On Essay - Ecology PDF
Focus On Essay - Ecology PDF
[ 15 marks ]
Niche refers the physical area dwelt by an organism and its functional role in the community.
The functional role depends on the dwelling and the activities of the organism.
Habitat refers to the natural area where an organism lives and grows.
Habitat consists of physical and biotic factors that influence the living of an organism.
The three types of niche are space/ habitat niche, trophic/ food niche and multidimensional/ hyper
volume niche
Space niche refers to the total overall area or various effective environments dwelt in by an organism
even though the environment changes from one stage of the organisms life cycle to another.
Ex: The environment of the seedling of a plant is different from the environment of the mature plant.
( or can use frog as ex: tadpole lives in pond while mature frog live on land and water ).
The space niche of the plant is the whole area involved in its life time.
Trophic niche is explained by referring to the feeding habit of caterpillars and aphids.
Both feed on the same plant but caterpillar eats the leaves while aphids suck the plants stem sap.
Thus, caterpillars and aphids have different trophic niche.
Multidimensional niche occurs when an individual organism or species continues to live in certain
area.
Multidimensional niche is affected by multiple environment factors such as temperature, light, food
source etc.
Competition will occurs in the overlapping multidimensional niches if the resources are limited.
Competition between species in the overlapping multidimensional niche can be result in the
elimination of one of the species or the separation of niche.
[ 10 marks ]
( Give examples for producers, consumers and decomposers if the question specify a named ecosystem )
Less than 1% of the total amount of incoming solar radiation is used in photosynthesis/ primary
production.
Most solar radiation is reflected or absorbed by ozone layer, dust particles or clouds.
Most energy fails to strike the green plants or absorbed by soil.
Of the solar radiation striking the leaves, much is used in evaporating water from the leaves.
Sunlight is absorbed by the chlorophyll of the green plants.
Some light striked the plants is not in photosynthetically active range/ chlorophyll only absorbs mostly
red and blue wavelength.
The total amount of energy captured in newly synthesised carbohydrates during photosynthesis is
called the gross primary production ( GPP ).
Much of the producer materials die and enter the decomposer trophic level.
Generally 50% of the plant materials enter the decomposer food chain rather than consumer food chain.
Producers are eaten by primary consumer ( herbivore ).
Some of the plants eaten will be egested as faeces and will available to decomposers.
Some of the plant materials eaten and digested by primary consumer will be assimilated.
Some of the energy assimilated will be respired and lost as heat in all trophic level.
Some energy may be lost in urine.
The productivity/ biomass of one trophic level is less than that of the previous trophic level.
Only about 10% of the energy consumed by one trophic level is available for the consumption of the
next trophic level.
This results in a limit in the number of trophic level in an ecosystem to four or five by the fifth trophic
level, there is not sufficient energy to support the next trophic level.
After the fourth or fifth trophic level, the remaining energy is insufficient to support any more trophic
level.
Therefore, the tropical rainforest trophic level is only four to five levels.
5. Discuss the density-dependant/ biotic factors which influence the population size.
[ 8 marks ]
Competition for limited resources such as food, space and mates will increase as the population density
increases.
Individuals who are unable to compete die which then leads to population decline.
Overcrowding in large population causes excessive stress, abnormal or aggressive behaviour and
hormonal change.
This results in decline in health and survivorship reduces, increase infertility and parental neglect.
Parasitism and disease spreads is prevalent in high density population.
Individuals in the population succumb to infections in large number, causing high mortality.
As population size increases, toxic waste products from metabolism accumulate in the ecosystem.
This may poison the population, leading to higher mortality.
In a prey-predator population, interspecific interaction will result in cyclic fluctuation of both
populations.
An increase in prey population supports a larger predator population, which in turns lead to a drastic
decline in prey population.
7. Explain how the population of rats in rice field can be estimated. Give the assumptions need to be
considered.
[ 10 marks ]
The rats population in rice field can be estimated by capture-recapture method.
Traps with baits are placed randomly in the study area and left overnight since the rats are primarily
nocturnal animals.
In the next morning, the traps are collected and the total number of rats caught is counted and recorded
as first sample.
Each rat caught is marked with suitable marker such as non-toxic Indian ink.
The marked rats are released back to the study area.
After suitable period, traps with baits again are placed in the study area and left overnight.
*STPM Biology Term 3 ( Focus on Essay )
The next day, the traps are collected and the total number of rats caught is counted and recorded as
second sample.
The total number of rats with marking is counted and recorded.
The rat population in the rice field can be estimated by the formula:
Number of rats in 1st sample x number of rats in 2nd sample
Population size =
Number of marked rats recaptured
8. State the meaning of survivorship curve, describe the three types of survivorship curves with named example
for each.
[ 10 marks ]
Survivorship curve represents the probability that a given individual in a population will survive to a
particular age.
Human shows Type I survivorship curve.
Human shows low mortality rate during young/ infant age due to good parental care.
Most individuals able to reach the physiological age to reproduce.
The individuals live for a long period of time and die due to senescence.
Hydra exhibits Type II survivorship curve.
The death rate is constant throughout the lifetime.
The population size declines at a steady rate over time.
Oyster shows Type III survivorship curve.
Oyster shows high mortality rate during infancy due to predation and no parental provided.
The survive rate becomes constant once the organism reaches maturity.
The organism dies due to senescence.
The elements are circulated from producer to consumer and become available again through
decomposers and detritivores.
The cycle prevents the depletion of the resources.
15. Describe the human activities which interupt the carbon cycle.
[ 5 marks ]
Combustion of fossil fuels increases the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.
Deforestation slows down the process of carbon removal from the atmosphere where the rate of
photosynthesis by plants is greatly reduced.
Burning of forest / logged trees contributes a large amount of stored carbon ( in the wood ) to the
atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
The increase in carbon dioxide content in atmosphere contributes to greenhouse effect which raises the
Earths temperature.
The rise in temperature causes the melting of ice in polar regions.