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Exam 2012, questions - animal populations

Animal Populations

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Animal Populations (ANIM3361 )

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University of Western Australia

Academic year: 2011/2012

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SCHOOL OF ANIMAL BIOLOGY

SEMESTER 1, 2012 EXAMINATIONS

ANIM

ANIMAL POPULATIONS

FAMILY NAME: ______ GIVEN NAMES:

STUDENT ID: SIGNATURE: ___________________________

This Paper Contains: 9 pages (including title page) Time allowed: 3hours 10 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS:

This paper is in two parts. PLEASE ANSWER EACH PART IN A SEPARATE BOOKLET

PART A consists of three questions pertaining to population ecology. Answer all three questions. Questions 1 and 2 have internal choices.

PART B consists of two questions on community ecology and one question on experimental design. Answer all three questions. Question 5 has internal choice.

PLEASE

NOTE

Examination candidates may only bring authorised materials into the examination room. If a supervisor finds, during the examination, that you have unauthorised material, in whatever form, in the vicinity of your desk or on your person, whether in the examination room or the toilets or en route to/from the toilets, the matter will be reported to the head of school and disciplinary action will normally be taken against you. This action may result in your being deprived of any credit for this examination or even, in some cases, for the whole unit. This will apply regardless of whether the material has been used at the time it is found.

Therefore, any candidate who has brought any unauthorised material whatsoever into the examination room should declare it to the supervisor immediately. Candidates who are uncertain whether any material is authorised should ask the supervisor for clarification.

Supervisors Only – Student left at:

You

may find these formulae useful

Nt=R 0

N 0

Nt=N 0 ert or Nt=N 0 λt

⎟

⎠

⎞ ⎜

⎜

⎝

⎛ −

rN K N dt

⎟ ⎠

⎞ ⎜ ⎝

⎛ −

N r

t t

N Ne

∑

∞

R 0 lxbx R

lxbxx G 0

∑

R r 0

⎟⎟

⎠

⎞

⎜⎜

⎝

⎛ − −

=

1 1 12 2 1 1

K

K N N

rN

dt

dN α

⎟⎟

⎠

⎞ ⎜⎜ ⎝

⎛ − −

2 2 21 1 2 2

2 K

K N N rN dt

dN α

∑

∑ = 2

( )

ik jk ij p

p p O

rV aVP dt

dV = − bVP qP dt

dP = −

ii) Bullfrog life cycles The following extracts are from a paper by Govindarajulu, Alt wegg and Anholt entitled Mat rix model investigation of invasive species control: bullfrogs on Vancouver Island, published in the journal Ecological Applications.

a) What is the probability of a First year large tadpole (Stage 2) surviving to become a Metamorph juvenile (Stage 4) by the slow and fast track development methods?

b) What proportion of adult bullfrogs die each year in this population?

c) Do you think natural selection on this population will favour the fast or slow track method of development from stage 2 to stage 4 and why?

d) Given that this population of bullfrogs is an introduced pest, what stage in the life cycle would you target in order to try to reduce the population size the quickest and why?

e) If you were able to reduce the transition you chose in question d) by 10% by how much would this change the finite growth rate for the bullfrog population?

Question

2. Answer one (1 ) of the following two (2 ) questions

i) Competition between bird species Two hypothetical species of wading birds compete with each other for food in the form of benthic invertebrates. The carrying capacities and competition coefficients for the two species are given below:

Species 1: Carrying capacity = 700, α 12 =0.

Species 2: Carrying capacity=600, α 21 =0.

a) Plot isoclines for the two species on the same graph and draw on the resultant vectors.

b) What will be the result of the competition between the two species and why?

c) If species 1 were to adapt over time to become a stronger competitor with species 2, what would the value of α 21 need to increase to for species 1 to always win in competition?

d) If after species 1 adapted to become a stronger competitor, the carrying capacity of species 2 were to increase, by how much would it need to increase in order for there to be a situation where species 2 could win in competition?

OR

ii) Functional response by wolves In 1994,Dale, Adams and Bowyer published a paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology titled Functional Response of Wolves Preying on Barren-‐Ground Caribou in a Multiple-‐Prey Ecosystem. In their introduction they state that:

A study of wolf population ecology in Gates of the Arctic, and observed local trends in distribution of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, provided conditions for a natural experiment evaluating the functional response of wolf packs to variation in caribou abundance where moose and sheep numbers remained relatively constant. We hypothesized that wolves would readily switch to moose and sheep if caribou were scarce. Further, we predicted that this switching would result in a sigmoidal (type III) functional response, and if this response was robust, wolves woul d potentially regulate the caribou population over some range of densities.

Below is a table of some of the data that they collected in their study:

PART

B: Community Ecology and Experimental Design

This section consists of three (3) questions, one of which has internal choice. You should answer all three questions in the second of your two booklets.

Question

4: Answer both sections of this question

In his 1978 paper, Joe Connell questioned the usefulness of the application of equilibrium theory to much of community ecology. He suggested that communities “seldom or never reach an equilibrium state and that high diversity is a consequence of continually changing conditions”. However, a simpler explanation is that high diversity is maintained because the populations within communities are below carrying capacity and so resources never become limiting.

a) Comment on both parts of Connell’s claim, indicating why you agree or disagree with them and use evidence from a range of other studies to support your views. (8 marks)

b) Outline two hypotheses that involve mechanisms by which communities are kept from equilibrium: one of these should relate to situations involving changing conditions and the other to situations where communities are operating below carrying capacity. Use examples of studies from the literature to illustrate each theory, identifying the theory’s author and the type of community involved. (12 marks)

Question

5: Answer one (1) of the following three (3) questions.

i) There are three main theories to explain why, all others things being equal, there are more species on larger islands than on smaller islands. Outline the experiments that Daniel Simberloff, both alone and with E. Wilson, performed on mangrove islands and explain how the results of those experiments support or refute each of those three theories.

ii) One of the best examples of keystone predation comes from Robert Paine’s experimental removal of the starfish, Pisaster, from mussel beds on the north-‐western coast of USA. However, when his then student, Paul Dayton, tried to repeat the experiment, he was unable to get the same keystone effect. Explain the basis of the keystone interaction discovered by Paine and then explain the reason it was not found when Dayton repeated the experiment. What type of community is most likely to be affected in this way and why? Use examples from other communities to illustrate your answer.

iii) In their 2000 paper, Underwood, Chapman and Connell argue for the value of properly designed and conducted mensurative (descriptive) studies of naturally occurring patterns in nature as the first steps to the understanding of the processes that produced those patterns. However, they state that

the study of indirect interactions is one case where an experimental approach is required. Explain the basis for that statement, using examples of indirect interactions such as trophic cascades, meso-‐ predator release, indirect commensalism and including examples of both interaction chains and interaction modifications wherever possible to illustrate your answer.

Question

6: Complete all sections of this question.

You are provided with an extract of a recent paper by Campos et al. from Austral Ecology (2011) Volume 36 , pp. 983–992 (see below). This study is a comparison of species richness and diversity at different spatial scales. Read the extract and then answer the following questions.

a) List all the factors affecting how many species were found in each pit-‐trap. For each factor, state the number of levels (treatments) within the factor, whether it is a fixed or random factor and what its relationship is to the other factors, that is, are they orthogonal (crossed) or nested. You may find it easier to present the answer in table format.

b) Are there any problems with the experimental design? If so, explain what they are and why they are problematic. If not, explain why not.

c) The authors claim in the abstract that “Ant richness and species turnover were compared at three spatial scales: pitfalls associated with a tree, trees within a transect and transects within a savanna.” Explain how they would have done that, if necessary, using a layout diagram and the concepts of alpha, beta and gamma diversity.

d) The authors also claim that “There was no significant difference in the mean number of species per pitfall trap, but the mean species richness was significantly higher in Brazil than in Australia at both the tree and transect scales.” Explain how this can happen and what it means for the way ants are distributed in spacewithin the two continents.

e) For the comparison between continents, what is the experimental unit? How many replicates of that experimental unit are there on each continent?

Multi-scale ant diversity in savanna woodlands: an

intercontinental comparisonaec_2255 983..

RICARDO I. CAMPOS, 1 * HERALDO L. VASCONCELOS, 2 ALAN N. ANDERSEN, 4 TIAGO L. M.

FRIZZO 2 AND KELLY C. SPENA 3

1 Departamento de BiologiaGeral, Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), 36570-000,Viçosa, MG, Brazil (Email: ricardo@ufv); 2 Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU), Uberlândia, MG, and 3 Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes (UMC), Campus 1, Núcleo de CiênciasAmbientais,Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, Brazil; and 4 CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, CSIRO Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre,Winnellie, Northern Territory, Australia

will subsequently be referred to as a ‘tree’ (Appendix S2). The four traps placed on the ground were arranged in a 2 ¥ 2-m grid established around each tree. The four arboreal traps were, whenever possible, placed in different tree branches and were at least 2 m apart from each other. Pitfall traps were 4- cm diameter plastic containers partially filled with water and detergent. For each set of four ground and arboreal traps, two had their inner rims smeared with sardine oil, and two with honey, as ant attractants. Each trap was kept open for a 48-h period, and a total of 1280 pitfalls were sampled on and around 160 trees used published information (Andersen 2000; Schultz &amp;McGlynn 2000) combined with direct observations for 1 h on each tree to identify which species nest arboreally.

Ants were sampled during November and December (early rainy season) of 2005 in Brazil and during the same months and season of 2006 in Australia. All ants collected in traps were sorted to species, and where possible named, with species nomenclature following Bolton (2003). Species that could not be confidently named were assigned voucher codes. Voucher specimens of all Australian species are held at the CSIRO Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre, and Brazilian species in the Zoological Collection of the Federal University of Uberlândia.

Data analysis

The comprehensiveness of our sampling protocol was evaluated by constructing two sample (pitfall trap)-based accumulation curves (Gotelli&amp; Colwell 2001), one for Australia and the other for Brazil (n = 640 pitfalls each), using EstimateS 7 (Colwell 2004). A t-test was used to compare mean ant abundance at the pitfall trap scale, and mean species richness at the pitfall, ‘tree’ and transect scales (Appendix S2),between Australia and Brazil.

END

OF EXAM

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Exam 2012, questions - animal populations

Course: Animal Populations (ANIM3361 )

21 Documents

Students shared 21 documents in this course

University: University of Western Australia

Was this document helpful?

SCHOOL OF ANIMAL BIOLOGY

SEMESTER 1, 2012 EXAMINATIONS

ANIM3361

ANIMAL POPULATIONS

FAMILY NAME: ____________________________ GIVEN NAMES: ______________________

STUDENT ID:

SIGNATURE: ___________________________

This Paper Contains: 9 pages (including title page)

Time allowed: 3hours 10 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS:

This paper is in two parts. PLEASE ANSWER EACH PART IN A SEPARATE BOOKLET

PART A consists of three questions pertaining to population ecology. Answer all three questions.

Questions 1 and 2 have internal choices.

PART B consists of two questions on community ecology and one question on experimental

design. Answer all three questions. Question 5 has internal choice.

PLEASE&NOTE&

Examination candidates may only bring authorised materials into the examination room. If a supervisor

finds, during the examination, that you have unauthorised material, in whatever form, in the vicinity of your

desk or on your person, whether in the examination room or the toilets or en route to/from the toilets, the

matter will be reported to the head of school and disciplinary action will normally be taken against you. This

action may result in your being deprived of any credit for this examination or even, in some cases, for the

whole unit. This will apply regardless of whether the material has been used at the time it is found.

Therefore, any candidate who has brought any unauthorised material whatsoever into the examination

room should declare it to the supervisor immediately. Candidates who are uncertain whether any material

is authorised should ask the supervisor for clarification.

Supervisors Only – Student left at:

Exam 2012, questions - animal populations

Animal Populations (ANIM3361 )

University of Western Australia

Comments

Students also viewed

Related documents

Preview text

SCHOOL OF ANIMAL BIOLOGY

SEMESTER 1, 2012 EXAMINATIONS

ANIM

ANIMAL POPULATIONS

FAMILY NAME: ____________________________ GIVEN NAMES: ______________________

STUDENT ID: SIGNATURE: ___________________________

PLEASE

You

Nt=R 0

N 0

∑

⎟⎟

⎠

⎞

⎜⎜

⎝

⎛ − −

=

K

K N N

rN

dt

dN α

⎟⎟

dN α

Question

OR

PART

Question

Question

Question

Multi-scale ant diversity in savanna woodlands: an

intercontinental comparisonaec_2255 983..

RICARDO I. CAMPOS, 1 * HERALDO L. VASCONCELOS, 2 ALAN N. ANDERSEN, 4 TIAGO L. M.

FRIZZO 2 AND KELLY C. SPENA 3

END

Exam 2012, questions - animal populations

Course: Animal Populations (ANIM3361 )

University: University of Western Australia

Students also viewed

Related documents

FAMILY NAME: ______ GIVEN NAMES: