Notes
Slide Show
Outline
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Community Ecology
Interactions among species
living in the same place
  • Populations interact with one another in diverse ways. Today we consider mutual antagonism (-,-) and cooperation (+,+).
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Reading Assignment
  • Today’s reading is Chapter 53, pages 1214 -1220, 1227-1229 plus pages 586-588 on global change.
  • Lab 13 on Interspecific interactions covers much of this material.
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Species Interactions
  • At every place there are normally many species living together (=community). What are the possible effects of species on each other?
  • The simplest categorization of effects is to consider pairs of species and to categorize effects as positive (+) or negative (-).
  • In this lecture we consider -,- and +,+ population size effects when we compare species grown together versus alone.
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Measuring Interactions
  • Biologists sometimes measure the interaction between species as the effect on the population sizes of the species, but
  • Other times the interactions are descriptions of events in which individuals of two species interact.
  • The relation of individuals and populations is not always simple.
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Biological Competition
  • One operational definition of biological competition is to compare population size when grown together versus alone (on the same resource). This used in your lab.
  • Two species are said to be competitors if both species have smaller populations (-, -) when grown together compared to when grown alone.
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Alone versus Together
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Husbanding of Organisms
  • To compare species grown alone versus grown together, we have to know how to grow the species.
  • Scientists do not know how to indefinitely culture most of the species found in nature.
  • Some algae can be cultured in the lab and you used such species in your lab.
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Population Size Outcomes
when two species are grown together
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Other ways to look at competition
  • Niche overlap
  • Niche is range of resources a species can use.
  • Overlap of resource use and access to same resources leads to expectation that species will interfere with each others growth.
  • The greater the overlap the more the interference.
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Resource Space Ideas
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Mechanisms of Competition
  • Consumptive
  • Preemptive
  • Overgrowth
  • Chemical
  • Territorial
  • Encounter
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Competitive Exclusion Principle
  • Formulated by G. F. Gause based on experiments with Paramecium and yeast, it states “It is not possible for species with the same niche to coexist”.
  • It has primarily motivated studies looking for differences between two species that at least superficially coexist with the same way of life.
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Mutualism
  • Interactions between two species in which both species have larger populations when together than when alone (+, +).
  • Some pairs of species are so dependent on one another that one or both species can not survive alone much less be grown alone.
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Mutualism Examples
Distantly Related
  • The species involved in a mutualism may be far apart taxonomically
    • Ants & Fungi
    • Bees & Plants
    • Fungi & protists Lichens, so distinct that they are given ‘species’ names
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Rhizobium-Legume Mutualism
  • Nitrogen used to be a limiting nutrient for plants in many terrestrial environments.
  • Lightening is a major source of nitrogen compounds.
  • Nitrogen fixation by bacteria is another major source of nitrogen compounds.
  • The symbiosis between legumes and Rhizobium is a source of nitrogen for plants.
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Mutualism Examples
Closely Related
  • Mutualisms can be between closely related species
    • Fish-fish
    • Insect-insect (Ants-treehoppers)
      • Ants protect the treehoppers from predators and benefit by eating excretions of the treehoppers
      • (Similar to human relations with domestic animals)
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Mutualisms involving Ants
  • Ants protect the Acacia by biting herbivores and by clearing area around tree. Tree provides a home and food for the ant. Both species benefit.
  • Ants-treehoppers and trees. Treehoppers are herbivores that suck the sugar out of the sap but end up excreting a lot of sugar. Ants live off the excreted sugar.
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Ants & Treehoppers
  • The ants population is increased by the treehoppers. Do the ants increase the treehoppers population?
  • The ants protect the treehoppers from spider predators, but the protection is only measurable when the spiders are common.
  • Relationships among species may be conditional on the environment.
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Problem/Solution
  • If species A grown alone reaches 1000 cells per ml,
  • If species B grown alone reaches 2000 cells per ml,
  • What would you conclude if grown together they had densities of 1000 and 2000 cells respectively?
  • Species A utilizes only resources that can not be utilized by B, and species B utilizes only resources not useable by A (in this environment and during the time they were growing together).
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Vocabulary
  • Competition
  • Niche
  • Nice Overlap
  • Population size
  • Types of Interactions


  • Competitive Exclusion
  • Nitrogen fixation
  • Lichen
  • Mutualism
  • Kinds of resources