Ecology - BIO 2142 /2542

Dr M. Bonato

April 2024
 Contact Details of Lecturer

Dr Maud Bonato
Room FF48 – Department of Biological Sciences
Email: maud.bonato@univen.ac.za
 Prerequisites

o BIO 1542 and BIO 1643

o Study material
o Begon, M. Townsend, C.R. & Harper, J.L. 2006.
Ecology, individuals, populations and
communities. 4th edition. London: Blackwell
ohttp://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_th
umb/Ecology-From-Individuals-to-Ecosystems-by-
Michael-Begon--2006-.pdf
 Attendance

o Students are required to attend all lectures and practical

sessions

o Students will be required to sign a class attendance

sheet at each practical session
 Study units

1. The nature and extent of ecology

2. Conditions

3. Resources

4. Life and death in unitary and modular organisms

5. Intraspecific competition

6. Interspecific competition

7. The nature of predation

1. The nature and extent of ecology
 What is Ecology?
o First defined by Esrnt Haeckel in 1869 (Ӧekologie):
o Scientific study of the interactions between organisms and
their environment
o Revisited by Krebs in 1972:
o Scientific study of the interactions that determine the
distribution and abundance of organisms
o Does not use the word environment
o Environment of an organism:
o All those factors and phenomena outside the organism that
influences it
o Physical and chemical : abiotic
o Other organisms: biotic
 What is Ecology?
o Some ecologists:
definition too narrow
o interaction between
life and the physical
environment e.g. how
organisms affect
material fluxes in
nature

o Subject matter of
ecology = distribution
and abundance
Hierarchical levels
o Ecosystems organized from smallest to
largest:
o Organism: single living thing
o Population: all organisms of the same
species, in the same place at the same
time
o Community: all populations in the
same place at the same time
o Ecosystem: reactions between living
and non-living components in a given
area
o Biosphere: totality of the life
interacting with the physical
environment at the scale of the earth
 Hierarchical levels cont.

o Individual level: how individuals are affected by their

environment
o Population ecology: fluctuation and trends of a particular
species at a particular space and time – as determined by
birth, death, competition, predation
o Community ecology: what controls diversity of species of a
given area - distribution, structure, abundance,
demography, interactions between coexisting populations
o Ecosystem ecology: transfer of energy and matter among
living and non-living components within and between
ecosystems
 Hierarchical levels cont.
o Emergent properties: property which a collection or complex system
has, but which the individual members do not have
o e.g. individual ant not capable of building a nest, having complex
social interactions, but a colony of ants has emergent properties
that allow all of these to occur

o Each hierarchical level has characteristics that the lower level does not
have
o e.g. a community has species richness, something a population
does not have and something you would not be able to predict
from looking at the populations on their own
 Explanation, description,
prediction and control
o Ecology = science to try to explain or understand

o BUT necessary to first describe it

o Description: most valuable descriptions carried out with
a particular problem
o Prediction: what will happen to an organism, a
population or a community under a particular set of
circumstances (e.g. impact of climate change on
plant/animal populations?)
o Control: based on these predictions, we try to control or
exploit them (e.g. control pests on crops)
 Explanation, description,
prediction and control cont.
o Two different classes of explanations in ecology:

• Proximate: what is going on here and now – i.e present

distribution and abundance of a species of bird may be ‘explained’ in
terms of the physical environment that the bird tolerates, the food that it
eats and the parasites and predators that attack it.

• Ultimate: ecological experiences of its ancestors - i.e.

How organisms came to possess particular combinations of size,
developmental rate, reproductive output and so on…
 What do ecologists do?
• Probably the oldest science – primitive humans had to know
where things were
• Early agriculturists were applied ecologists
• Applied ecology: How do we protect crops from pests
• Fundamental: Understand for understanding’s sake –
processes responsible for structure and composition of
communities
• Need for applied ecology to be based on pure counterpart
Ecological evidence
Comparative field observations
Manipulative experiments
 Alternative options
o Field experiments are costly, difficult to carry out, very
complex
o Laboratory experiments - best way to answer key parts of
overall explanation of complex situation in the field
o Simple laboratory systems – systems that can act as
benchmarks or jumping-off points
o Mathematical models – surrogate for real systems that
are difficult to maintain
o Worth of models are judged by how much light they
throw on the real world
o “Seek simplicity, but distrust it”
 Statistics and Scientific rigour
• You cannot prove anything with statistics
• Attaching a level of confidence on conclusions drawn –
search for conclusions that we are confident in NOT those
that are ‘proven to be true’
• Science is rigorous because:
• Conclusions are based on investigations to test a
hypothesis
• Based on conclusions we can attach a level of
confidence
Statistics and Scientific rigour cont.
• Ecologist must plan ahead to collect the right kind and
sufficient amount of data to address the question
• Replication of treatments increases the likelihood of
getting statistically significant results
• Replication can be expensive and time consuming,
particularly processes that are difficult to measure
• Trade-off between realism and replication
• Ecology relies on estimates obtained from representative
samples
 The role of history in the
distribution and abundance of
a species

o To understand species abundance, we need to know its history

o Other important aspects: environmental resources they
require, individual birth rate, migration, and interactions with
their own or other species
Continental drift
Large flightless birds (Ratites)
Climate change
Stability and richness
 Evolutionary backdrop
o Heart of ecology = relationship between organisms and
their environment
o Fundamentally an evolutionary relationship
o Russian-American Theodosius Dobzhansky: “ Nothing in
biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution”
o The meaning of adaptation:
o X is adapted to live in Y’ = “ Environment Y has provided
forces of natural selection that have affected the life of X’s
ancestors and so have moulded and specialized the
evolution of X”
o Adaptation means that genetic change has occurred
Evolution by natural selection
 Theory of evolution through
natural selection
o Five propositions:
• Individuals in a population are not identical
• Some of these differences are heritable
• All populations have the potential to populate the whole
earth, but they don’t
• Different ancestors leave different numbers of descendants
• The number of descendant and individual leaves behind
depends, not entirely but crucially, on the interaction
between the characteristics of the individual and its
environment
 Survival of the fittest

o Evolution is change over time in heritable traits

o Fittest individuals in a population = those that leave the
greatest number of descendants relative to the number of
descendants left by other individuals in the population.
o Individuals that survive hazards and risks of environment
and having survived, are able to reproduce
o Interactions with environment (ecology) lie at heart of
evolution through natural selection
 Specialization within species
o Environments vary and will favour different variants of a
species
o Characteristics of population will only diverge if they are
sufficient heritable variation AND
o Forces favouring divergence are strong enough
o Local adaptation ➔ ecotypes
Ecotypes – Sapphire rockress
Local adaptation at larger
spatial scales

Chamaecrista fasciculata
 Peppered moths

Melanic form Normal form

 Ecology of speciation

o What do we mean by a “species”?

o Organisms are the same species if they can interbreed
(biospecies)
o Biologist do not apply Mayer-Dobzansky test – recognize
organisms a members of a single species if they could at
least potentially breed together and produce fertile
offspring
o More important that the test recognise a crucial element
in evolutionary process - considering specialization
within species
 Ecological speciation
o Divergent natural selection
in distinct populations

o Reproductive isolation
Questions?