A.

POPULATION
DYNAMICS
 Population dynamics
Study of how and why population size changes over time.

Example:

Population density
natality or birth rate
mortality or death rate of the population
survivorship
age structure
migration
form of growth
BIO330/UiTMTapah/Zulfadli-M
BIO330/UiTMTapah/Zulfadli-M
 B. Properties of
Population
Density, Dispersion,
Population Size
 Population density

How many individuals of dandelions How many individuals of meerkat in a

in a square meter of land? square meter of land?

• Population density varies among different environments

• Population with larger body size usually has lower population density than population
with smaller body size - due to availability of resources
• Large individuals consume more resources than small individuals.
• Unit for population density – 100 individuals of dandelion/1 m2 or 20 individuals
of meerkat/1 m2
 Population dispersion
Source: Wikimedia commons
• Individuals are spaced from each
other uniformly
• Due to short supply of resources
• Animals may show territorial
behaviour
• Plants may secrete toxic chemical to
prevent any seedlings from growing
• Individuals are neither attracted nor
repelled from each other
• Due to abundance of resources
• Distribution of individual species is
almost unpredictable
• Individuals occur at specific sites
of habitat.
• Due to patchy distribution of
resources
• Association of family groups and
pairs
• Limited seed dispersal or asexual
reproduction
• Advantageous: highly cooperative to
reduce risks of predation, feeding &
rearing offspring
• Very common in nature
 Population dispersion

BIO330/UiTMTapah/Zulfadli-M
 Population size
• Not a static property of a population
• but a result of dynamic interplay between processes that add individual to a
population and those that remove individuals from it
 Formula to calculate population size
Population of organisms either plants or animals can change over time.

∆N/∆t = N (b-d)

∆N = change in the number of individuals in the population

∆t = change in time,
N= the number on individual in the existing population,
b = natality
d = mortality.
 Population size
The growth rate (r) or rate of change
(increase or decrease) of a population on a
per capita basis is the birth rate (b) minus
the death rate (d):
r = b-d

The per capita growth rate equals the

birth rate (b) minus the death rate (d),
plus the immigration rate (i) minus
emigration rate (e):
r = (b-d) + (i-e)