4.

Life and death in unitary and modular organisms

Birth, death, movement

o Population group of organisms of the same species,

occupying a particular area at a particular time
o Four processes give rise to change in population size –
birth (B), death (D), immigration (I) and emigration (E)
o Ecological fact of life: Nt+1 = Nt+B-D+I-E
o Main aim of ecology:
o Numbers and distributions of individuals
o Demographic processes (B,D, I and E) that influences these
numbers
o How these processes are influences by environmental
factors
 What is an individual

oIndividuals differ – life cycle and condition

oUnitary: development is determinate
oModular: repeated production of modules, branching
structure
oIn modular organism we distinguish between genet:
genetic individual, and module: multicellular outgrowth
of another module - and has its own determinate
developmental trajectory
oModular organisms are themselves populations of
modules
Counting individuals, birth and deaths

oMost studies focus on total number of individuals

and how they vary over time i.e. the consequences
of birth and death
oWhat is a population? Group of individuals of a
species under investigation - Investigator driven and
boundaries depend on question asked
oDifficulties of counting
oDensity = number per unit area
oAnimals: Mark-recapture
Determining population size

oComplete numbering often impossible

oEstimate by taking representative sample
o Quadrat for organisms that live on ground, leaf

o For animals
o Capture-recapture
o Indices of abundance / relative size
Capture -recapture

oAssume that the organisms are mixed randomly

oProbability of recapture is the same for all
individuals
oThere are no migration
oNone of the marked individuals die during the
interval between mark and recapture
Indices of abundance
Counting births and deaths

oCounting births: Even more difficult. embryo – or

independent, 50% of embryos perish
oCounting deaths: Dead bodies disappear
oCapture/recapture can give some estimates BUT
indistinguishable from emigration
Life cycles

oForces determining the abundance of a population –

need to know phases when forces act most
significantly
oConflict between growth and reproduction
 Life cycle (cont.)

oSpecies may be:

o Semelparous
o Iteroparous
oSemelparous –single, distinct
reproductive period
o i.e annual plants, Pacific
salmon
o Iteroparous – several
reproductive period
o Seasonal aspect
o Individual of different age
and stage breed side by side
Wet tropics

oContinuous breeding
oHumans and cockroaches in stable human
environments
oSome plants and animals spend a long juvenile
phase (non-reproductive) and have one lethal burst
of reproduction (Salmon and bamboo)
Semelparous animal: the salmon
Semelparous plant: the bamboo
Monitoring births and deaths: life tables
and fecundity schedules
oPrevious section outlined patterns of birth and death
oBUT what are the consequences of these pattern
oHow do populations become pests and how do
some species go extinct
oNeed to quantify age-specific survival and fecundity
oExamine changing patterns of mortality with life
tables – survivorship curve (plot of probability of
surviving for representative newly born individuals)
oAge-specific fecundity schedules
Annual species

oAnnual life cycles take approximately 12 months to

complete.
oBreeds during one particular season – dies before
the same season the next year
Life table for a plant
Summary terms of a life table

olx proportion of individuals that survive up to age

interval x
omx, average offspring a female produces during age
interval x
oBasic Reproductive Rate R0 : mean number of
offspring produced by original individual by the
end of the cohort
olx mx, how much an age class contributes to the next
generation
oΣ lx mx = R0
oDiscrete and overlapping generations
Survivorship curve
Classification of survivorship curves

oEcologists search for generalities: patterns of life and

death that we see repeated in the lives of many
species
Individuals with repeated breeding
seasons

oBreed repeatedly and have specific breeding season

and have overlapping generations
oMore difficult to construct cohort life tables
Static life tables

oUse population snapshot – static life tables

o CAUTION: can only be used if the birth and survival
patterns have remained stable since the birth of the
older individuals

oTime-specific or vertical life tables

o ASSUMPTIONS:
o Individuals in one age class are the survivors of the
previous age class
o No year-to-year variation prior to a specific year in
either the total number of births or the age-specific
survival rates
Static life tables
Reproduction rate, length of generations
and growth rate
oR0 = Basic reproductive rate (summary terms describing
overall patterns of survivorship and fecundity)
oR0 describes the following
o number of progeny produced during an individual’s life
o Multiplication factor – converts one population size to
another in the next generation
o Nt = NoRt (e.g. N3 = No x R x R x R = NoR3)
oNt = N0Rt links population size, rate of increase, and
time
o N0 = size of the population when no time has elapsed
o t = time interval
o R = fundamental reproductive rate over the time interval
Intrinsic rate of natural increase

oNT = N0R0 but NT = N0RT

o that is R0 = RT
o or ln R0 = TlnR
o(lnR0/T= r namely the intrinsic rate of natural
increase)
or (=lnR) = the increase in population per unit time
oFor overlapping generations, r (intrinsic growth rate)
is the possible rate of increase
oThis is only possible for stable survival and fertility
schedules that lead to a stable age structure
Estimating values from life tables and
fecundity schedules
oIf this varies, then the rate will change continually
olnR0/T = r , where T is the cohort generation time
oT = average length of time from birth of an individual
and the birth of its own offspring

oT = Σ xlxmx /Ro