BIO 104

GENERAL ECOLOGY

SPECIES INTERACTIONS
1.) Competition
2.) Predation
3.) Parasitism
4.) Mutualism
5.) Commensalism

CHAPTER 8 INTERSPECIFIC COMPETITON

INTERSPECIFIC COMPETITION
- Influenced by fecundity, growth of survivorship
- Resource exploitation or interference

SALMONID FISH PHENOMENA

• Sympatry (same place no taste with one another) vs. Allopatry (long distance
relationship)
• Coexist but distribution overlap little because of competition
• Fundamental niche (ideal) vs. Realized niche (actual reality)

GENERAL FEATURES OF INTERSPECIFIC COMPETITION

- Different species do compete
- Exclusion to not coexist
- Can lead to Natural Selection (survival of the most adaptable)

• EXPLOITATION
1.) Indirect interaction
• ALLELOPATHY
1.) Form of interference
2.) Through production and release of chemicals in the environment

- Frequently highly asymmetric

- Result from differential ability of species to occupy higher positions in competitive
hierarchy
- Competition for one resource may influence competition for another (plant-shade
experiment)

LOTKA-VOLTERRA MODEL
- A mathematical model that predicts that stable coexistence of two species is
possible only when intraspecific competition has greater effect than interspecific
competition
- Behavior of model investigated using ‘zero isoclines (points in graph where the
limiting resource or population density levels of a particular species lies) ‘
 - Parallel isoclines will result in competitive exclusion
- Coexistence only is possible when isoclines cross

COMPETITIVE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE

• Gause’s Principle
1.) Coextistence → niche differentiation
2.) No differentiation → elimination or exclusion
• Heterogeneous, inconstant or unpredictable environment
• “Species will have competition when there are instances that gives them
opportunity to outcompete another” -- (clam-algae phenomena)

APPARENT COMPETITION
• Competition for enemy-free space
• No apparent limiting resource
• A form of competition between species of group of organisms indirectly competing
with another species or group of organisms, which both of them serve as prey of a
predator

PREDATION
• Consumption of one organism by another
• Prey is alive when attacked by predator
• Taxonomic vs. Functional

1.) TAXONOMIC PREDATION—carnivory, herbivory

2.) FUNCTIONAL PREDATION
▪ True Predators: kill prey more or less immediately after attacking
▪ Grazers: remove only part of prey instead of the whole individual
▪ Parasitoids: insects; free-living as adults but lay eggs in or near other
▪ Parasites: concentrates on one or a very few individual, consuming
only parts of prey
 CHAPTER 9 THE NATURE OF PREDATION

HERBIVORY
• Effects on herbivory depend on:
1.) The herbivore
2.) The plant affected
3.) Timing of attack relative to plant’s development

PLANT COMPENSATION
• Degree of tolerance exhibited by plants
1.) Damaged ↑ plants fitness→ OVERCOMPENSATION
2.) Damaged ↓ plants fitness→ UNDERCOMPENSATION

DEFENSIVE RESPONSES
• Plants make physical and chemical defensive responses
• Constitutive vs. Inducible
• Do inducible defenses work?
o Time lag in effect of chemical defense
o Abscission (the natural detachment of parts of a plant)
o Comes at significant cost to plant

HERBIVORY AND GROWTH

• Can lead to redistribution of photosynthate in different plant parts
• Grasses are tolerant to grazing
• Interaction between herbivory and plant competition
• Can have non-consumptive effects
HERBIVORY AND SURVIVAL
• Herbivory generally doesn’t directly kill a plant
• Repeated defoliation or ring-barking (removal of cambrial tissue and phloem) can
kill
• Surface feeding (certain minute parts of leaves are consumed)
• Predation of seeds

HERBIVORY AND FECUNDITY

• Influence on fecundity reflect effects on plant growth
o Reduce seed production
o Remove reproductive structures
• Herbivory can also be mutualistic

ANTIPREDATOR CHEMICAL DEFENSE IN ANIMALS

• Especially important to modular organisms

EFFECT ON PREY POPULATIONS

• Bad for the prey eaten but not always predictable bad for the population
• Predation may occur at a demographically unimportant stage
 • There are compensatory reactions among survivors
• The effect of predation on the population may be ameliorated by the reduction in
intraspecific competition
• Predatory attacks are often directed at the weakest prey

EFFECT ON CONSUMERS
• Consumers often need to exceed a threshold of consumption
• Consumers may be satiated
• Numerical response limited by generation time
• Food quality over quantity

CLASSIFICATION OF CONSUMERS
1.) Monophagous (only one kind) vs. Oligophagous (limited number of foods
under one taxonomic family) vs. Polyohagous (variety of foods)
2.) Specialist (can thrive only in anarrow range of environmental condition or
has a limited diet) vs. Generalist (able to thrive in a wide variety of
environmental conditions and can make use of a variety of different
resources)
3.) Most true predators (eat right away) have broad diets
4.) Parasitoids typically specialized, even monophagous
5.) ‘Parasitic’ herbivore are often specialized

FOOD PREFERENCES
• Ranked vs. balanced
• Range of responses
• Switching

OPTIMAL FORAGING THEORY

Assumptions:
1.) Foraging behavior favored by natural selection
2.) High fitness is achieved by high net rate of energy intake
3.) Experimental animals in environment suited for foraging

• Organisms will either be ENERGY MAXIMIZERS (get the most energy out of an
environment) or TIME MINIMIZERS (get the energy they need in the least
possible time)
• Some variations:
o Optimal diet problem
o Optimal patch use problem
o Optimal load size problem
o Central foraging theorem
• Ideal free distribution (aggregation of animals in each distributed patch is
proportional to resource available)
• Coevolution: predator-prey arms races (adaptations of two organisms to protect
oneself from one another— snail-crabs phenomena)
 CHAPTER 10 THE POPULATION DYNAMICS OF PREDATION

BASIC DYNAMICS
• There is a tendency to display coupled oscillations
• Crowding and spatial patchiness

LOTKA-VOLTERRA PREDATOR-PREY
Formulas:
• Intrinsic rate of population increase of prey – removal of prey by predators
• Predators efficiency at turning food into offspring - Mortality rate of predator

Lynx-Hare Phenomena
• Dynamics of hares driven by interactions with both their food and their predators
(especially lynx)
• Dynamics of lynx driven largely by interaction with the hare

DISEASE DYNAMICS
• Interaction of basic reproductive rate (R) and transmission threshold
o R<1, infection will die out
o R>1, infection wills spread

CROWDING
• Mutual interference amongst predators reduces the predation rate
• Density-dependent regulation

FUNCTIONAL RESPONSES
1.) TYPE 1: related to the increase in intake rate with food density (diagonal)
2.) TYPE 2: Related to handling time (curved)
3.) TYPE 3: Related to switching and variations in searching efficiency or
handling time (s)

HETEROGENEITY, AGGREGATION and SPATIAL VARIATION

• Most populations are metapopulous
• Dispersal and asynchrony dampen cycles
• The combination of patchiness, aggregation of predators in particular patches
and lack of synchrony between behavior of different patches are capable of
stabilizing dynamics of predator-prey interaction

PREDATION AND COMMUNITY STRUCTURE

• Predation is an intterupter of competitive exclusion: predator-mediated coexistence
• SELECTIVE PREDATION should favor increase in species numbers in a
community
 CHAPTER 11 DECOMPOSERS AND DETRITIVORES
What makes a saprotroph different from other consumers?
- Saprotrophs do not control the rate at which their resources are made available or
regenerate
- Saprotrophs are donor controlled
- Saprotrophs are decomposers→ bacteria and fungi
- Saprotrophs are detritivores→ animal consumers of dead matter
What is decomposition?
- Gradual disintegration of dead organic matter caused by both physical and
biological agencies
What is decomposed? DECOMPOSERS
- Dead bodies • Bacteria and Fungi
- Shed parts of organisms • Early colonists of newly dead
- Feces material
• Use soluble materials (amino
acids and sugars)

SAPROTROPHS: Decomposers
• Go through population explosion and eventually collapse
• Have domestic and industrial use
• Can be aerobic or anaerobic
• Most are relatively specialized
*remember r strategists (produce many offspring and live in unstable conditions/ quantity)
and K strategists (produce few offspring and live in a stable environment/ quality)

SAPROTROPHS: Detritivores
• Majority are generalist consumers
• MICROBIVORE- consumer of microbial organisms
• Mostly protists and invertebrates
• Some communities are exclusively detritivores and their predators
SAPROTROPHS
• Decomposition is a result of the interaction of microbes and detritivores
• Example:
Snails shred dead matter
→Shred dead matter means smaller particles with larger surface area
→Larger surface area allows for more microorganisms
• Most are specialists (e.g. coprophagy—faecal-eaters)
• Low levels of activity when:
1.) Temperatures are low
2.) Aeration is poor
3.) Soil is water scarce
4.) Conditions are acidic
• Releases mineral resources
 CHAPTER 12 PARASITISM AND DISEASE

INFECTION
Colonization of a host by parasites
DISEASE
Infection that brings harmful symptoms
PATHOGEN
Parasite that gives rise to a disease

MICROPARASITE vs. MACROPARASITE

MICROPARASITE MACROPARASITE
• Small and often intracellular
• Multiply directly within their host
• Difficult to estimate number
• Bacteria, Viruses, protozoa and
fungi
• Instantaneous transmission to
host
• May depend on vector for spread
• Generally intercellular
• Do not multiply in their host
• Produce specialized infective
stages
• Can be counted or estimated
• Helminth worms, lice, fleas, ticks,
fungi and plants
• Either direct or indirect
transmission
• Holo- and hemiparasitic plants

DIRECT LIFE CYCLE

• Directly transmits to the host

INDIRECT LIFE CYLE

• Require a vector or intermediate host for transmission
• May spend part of life cycle as microparasite and part of life cycle as macroparasite

*Brood (rely on others to raise their offspring) and social (coexistence of two or more
species on one nest or colony) parasitism

PARASITISM and DISEASE

• Habitats are free-living organisms
• Necrotrophic vs. Biotrophic
1.) NECROTROPHIC: kills the host and stays; starts as predators and
continues a saprotrophs; pioneer saprotrophs
2.) BIOTROPHIC: host has to be alive; dies with the host

• Host and habitat specificity

• Hosts react to parasites
• Parasites induce changes in growth and behavior of host
 CHAPTER 13 SYMBIOSIS AND MUTUALISM

SYMBIOSIS
• Close physical association between species with a symbiont occupying a habitat
provided by a host

MUTUALISM
• Organisms of different species interact for their mutual benefit

COMMENSALISM
• One partner gains and the other is neither harmed nor benefits