Ecological Principles

Dr. Anil Kumar Singh

(Ph.D, CSIR-NET, ICAR-NET, GSET, GPSC)
Assistant Professor, GES –II
Government Science College, Vankal, Surat
Mob: +91-7990205836/+91-9825574989
Email: aksingh.msu@gmail.com
What is ecology?
 Is the study of our surrounding
 It involves study of biotic and abiotic
components and their interaction.
 To study the biotic components we have
organized them into different levels
(hierarchical order)
Hierarchy Theory and Emergent Properties

Earth
Biosphere
Biome
Ecosystem
Community
Population
(basic unit of evolution)
Organisms
Terms
 Population: assemblage of individuals of the
same species in the same area
 Community: assemblage of all species in a
given area
 Biome: large regional units of several
different types of ecosystems existing in
same general area
 Biosphere: all of the Earth’s biomes at the
global scale (shuttle frame of reference)
Structure of Ecosystems
 Structure is underpinned by
flow of energy
 Autotrophs (producers): fix
energy from sun - plants
 Heterotrophs (consumers):
consume energy in C-C bonds
 Primary consumers - herbivores
 Secondary consumers –
carnivores and omnivores
 Tertiary consumers – Secondary
carnivores
 All organisms are classified by
their source of energy
Food chain

Food web
CSIR, June 2018
The flow of energy through a terrestrial ecosystem starts with the harnessing of
sunlight by autotrophs.
The rate at which radiant energy is converted by photosynthesis to organic
compounds is referred to as primary productivity because it is the first and basic
form of energy storage.

Gross primary productivity (GPP) is the total rate of photosynthesis, or energy

assimilated by the autotrophs in a given area per unit time.
Like all other organisms, autotrophs must expend energy in the process of
respiration.
The rate of energy storage as organic matter after respiration is net primary
productivity (NPP) .

NPP can be described by the following equation:

NPP = GPP - Respiration by autotrophs (R)

Productivity is usually expressed in units of energy per unit area per unit time:
kilocalories per square meter per year (kcal/m2/yr). However, productivity may
also be expressed in units of dry organic matter: (g/m2/yr).
The amount of accumulated organic matter found in an area at a
given time is the standing crop biomass .

Biomass is usually expressed as grams of organic matter per

square meter (g/m2 ) or some other appropriate unit of area.

Biomass differs from productivity

Productivity is the rate at which organic matter is created by

photosynthesis. Biomass is the amount of organic matter present at
any given time.
Estimation of net primary productivity Aquatic Ecosystem
The estimate of net primary productivity Terrestrial Ecosystem:
NPP = (ΔSCB) + D + C
Loss of biomass by D=death of plant and C=consumption by consumer
 Average world net primary production of various
ecosystems

Net Primary Production per unit area of

the world's common ecosystems.
CSIR, June 2018
Secondary production and efficiency
• NPP is the energy that moves through the food web.
• Its movement and distribution depends on how efficiently food
energy is converted to biomass at each step in each food chain
within a food web.
• In most ecosystems, herbivores only consume a small
fraction of the NPP (available plant material).
• Moreover, they digest only part of the plant material
(assimilation) and excrete the rest as waste.
• The amount of chemical energy in food that consumers
convert to new biomass (through growth or reproduction)
during a given period is called secondary production.
 Trophic Levels
Trophic level is the specific place occupied
by an organism in the food chain in an
ecosystem
There are many trophic levels in nature:
1. Producer (First trophic level)
2. Herbivore (Secondary trophic level)
3. Carnivore (Third trophic level)
4. Top Carnivore (Fourth trophic level)
 Ecological Pyramids
The pyramidal representation of trophic levels of different
organisms based on their ecological position [producer to final
consumer] is called as an ecological pyramid.

The food producer forms the base of the pyramid and the top
carnivore forms the tip.
Other consumer trophic levels are in between.
The pyramid consists of a number of horizontal bars depicting
specific trophic levels. The length of each bar represents the total
number of individuals or biomass or energy at each trophic level in
an ecosystem.

The ecological pyramids are of three categories.

Pyramid of numbers,
Pyramid of biomass, and
Pyramid of energy or productivity.
Trophic Levels of an Ecosystem
1. Pyramid of Number: Upright (in grass ecosystem)
Inverted (in tree ecosystem)
2. Pyramid of biomass: Upright (in grassland ecosystem) and
inverted (in pond ecosystem)

Each trophic level has a certain mass of living material at a particular time called
as the standing crop.
•In many aquatic ecosystems, the pyramid of biomass may assume
an inverted form. [Pyramid of numbers for aquatic ecosystem is
upright]

•This is because the producers are tiny phytoplankton that grow and
reproduce rapidly.

•Here, the pyramid of biomass has a small base, with the consumer
biomass at any instant actually exceeding the producer biomass and
the pyramid assumes inverted shape.
3. Pyramid of energy: To compare the functional roles of the trophic
levels in an ecosystem, an energy pyramid is most suitable.

An energy pyramid represents the amount of energy at each trophic

level and loss of energy at each transfer to another trophic level.
Hence the pyramid is always upward, with a large energy base
at the bottom.
Efficiency of energy transfer

Trophic efficiency is a measure of how much energy occurs at one

level divided by the energy at the level immediately below it
Trophic efficiency incorporates three types of efficiency:

The proportion of available energy that is consumed

(consumption efficiency)
Consumption efficiency are less than 5% in forests, around 25% in grasslands
and more than 50% in phytoplankton-dominated communities.
Less about the consumption efficiencies of carnivores feeding on their prey, and
any estimates are speculative.

Vertebrate predators may consume 50-100% of production from vertebrate prey

but perhaps only 5% from invertebrate prey. Invertebrate predators consume
perhaps 25% of available invertebrate prey production.
The proportion of ingested food that is assimilated
(assimilation efficiency).
Assimilation efficiencies are typically low for herbivores,
detritivores and microbivores (20-50%) and high for carnivores
(around 80%).

Bacteria and fungi typically assimilate effectively 100% of the dead

organic matter they digest externally and absorb, they are often said
to have an 'assimilation efficiency' of 100%.

Seeds and fruits may be assimilated with efficiencies as high as 60-

70%, and leaves with about 50% efficiency, while the assimilation
efficiency for wood may be as low as 15%. The animal food of
carnivores (and detritivores such as vultures that consume animal
carcasses) poses less of a problem for digestion and assimilation.
The proportion of assimilated food that goes into new
consumer biomass (production efficiency).
Invertebrates in general have high efficiencies (30-40%), losing relatively little
energy in respiratory heat and converting more assimilate to production.

Amongst the vertebrates, ectotherms have intermediate values for PE (around

10%), whilst endotherms, with their high energy expenditure associated with
maintaining a constant temperature, convert only 1-2% of assimilated energy into
production.
The small-bodied endotherms have the lowest efficiencies, with the tiny
insectivores (e.g. wrens and shrews) having the lowest production efficiencies of
all.
On the other hand, microorganisms, including protozoa, tend to have very high
production efficiencies. They have short lives, small size and rapid population
turnover.

In general, efficiency of production increases with size in endotherms and

decreases very markedly in ectotherms.
Ecological Efficiency (Lindmen’s Law of Trophic
Efficiency)
Ecological efficiency describes the efficiency with which energy is
transferred from one trophic level to the next.

The number of trophic levels in the grazing food chain is restricted

as the transfer of energy follows 10 per cent law – only 10 per cent
of the energy is transferred to each trophic level from the lower
trophic level.
The decreases at each subsequent trophic level is due to two
reasons:
At each trophic a part of the available energy is lost in respiration
or used up in metabolism.
A part of energy is lost at each transformation, i.e. when it moves
from lower to higher trophic level as heat.
10 % Law of Energy Flow through Tropic Levels
Bottom-up and top-down controls
Once we've assigned species to trophic levels, an approach to
understanding community structure is to model the relationships
between the trophic levels.
For example, let’s consider three possible relationships between
vegetation (primary producer) and herbivores (primary consumer)

horizontal arrows depict how the change of biomass in one trophic level will lead to a change in the other
trophic level

Bottom up control: lower trophic levels influence higher trophic levels

unidirectionally (fig 1). For example, addition of fertilizer into a body of water, it
stimulates the growth of phytoplankton, leading to an increase of biomass in
higher trophic levels. Here addition or removal of a predator does not effect lower
trophic levels
Top down control: higher trophic levels influence lower trophic
levels unidirectionally
When a predator initiates indirect effects on species lower in the
food chain, it’s called a trophic cascade.
CSIR, Dec 2017
CSIR, June 2016
CSIR, JUNE 2015
CSIR, June 2017
CSIR, June 2016

Ans: 3
CSIR, June 2016
CSIR, June 2016
CSIR, June 2015
Limitations of Ecological Pyramids

•It does not take into account the same species

belonging to two or more trophic levels.

•It assumes a simple food chain, something that almost

never exists in nature; it does not accommodate a food
web.

•Moreover, saprophytes (plant, fungus, or microorganism

that lives on decaying matter) are not given any place in
ecological pyramids even though they play a vital role in
the ecosystem.
Habitat and Niche
Niche Hypervolume
When all of the boundaries of tolerance of
diverse environmental influences are
assembled into a single, multivariate
factor.
This is known as the multidimensional
Hutchinsonian Niche Hypervolume
zone (also known as a hypervolume) of (1959)
environmental tolerance, in which -n-dimensional set of resources and
environments that a species
an individual can potentially survive or in requires to persist

which a species can maintain viable

populations.
We can quantify in this the
niche breadth and niche
overlap .
 Fundamental and Realized Niche
A fundamental niche can be defined as the
range of environmental conditions in
which a given species survives. (Niche
potentially occupied by a species in
absence of any competition for resources)

The realized niche can be termed as the range of environmental

conditions in which a species is really found. (Niche actually
occupied by a species because of competition by other species)
1: A smaller (yellow) species of bird forages across whole tree. 2: a larger (red) species competes for
resources. 3: Red dominates in middle for the more abundant resources. Yellow adapts to new niche,
avoiding competition.
CSIR, Dec 2016

Ans: 1
 Important
Ecogeographic Rules
•Endotherms (Homeotherms) use internally generated heat to
maintain body temperature. Their body temperature tends to stay
steady regardless of environment. Eg Mammals, Birds, etc.
•Endotherms can alter metabolic heat production to maintain
body temperature using both shivering and non-shivering
thermogenesis (brown fat in hibernators eg. Polar bears, rich in
mitochondria and uncoupling proteins).
•Vasoconstriction—shrinking—and vasodilation—expansion—of blood
vessels to the skin can alter an organism's exchange of heat with the
environment.
•A countercurrent heat exchanger is an arrangement of blood vessels in
which heat flows from warmer to cooler blood, usually reducing heat loss.

Rete mirabile is a complex of

arteries and veins lying very close
to each other, found in some
vertebrates, mainly warm-blooded
ones.
The rete mirabile utilizes
countercurrent blood flow within
the net (blood flowing in opposite
directions) to act as a
countercurrent exchanger.
It exchanges heat, ions, or gases between vessel walls so that the two
bloodstreams within the rete maintain a gradient with respect to
temperature, or concentration of gases or solutes. Eg Penguins have rete
mirabile in the flippers and nasal passages.
•Some animals use body insulation and evaporative mechanisms,
such as sweating and panting, in body temperature regulation.
Ectotherms (Poikilotherms) depend mainly on external heat
sources, and their body temperature changes with the temperature
of the environment. Eg. Reptiles, Insects, Fishes, Amphibians
•Animals exchange heat with their environment through radiation,
conduction—sometimes aided by convection—and evaporation.

Most ectotherms do regulate their body temperature to some degree,

though. They just don't do it by producing heat.
Instead, they use other strategies, such as behavior—seeking sun,
shade, etc.—to find environments whose temperature meets their
needs.
The graph below shows metabolic rate as a function of external temperature for
two animals: an endotherm and an ectotherm. Which curve represents the
endotherm, and which represents the ectotherm?
Exceptions
1. Tuna is a fish that is homethermic (generally fishes are
poikilothermic)
2. Humming bird is a bird that is poikilothermic (generally
birds are homeothermic)
CSIR, June 2018
Ecogeographic Rules: Variations in the traits of
organisms (mainly morphological) over geographical
gradients, particularly latitude.
Rules in terrestrial biomes
–Bergmann’s rule
–Allen’s rule
–Gloger’s rule
–Fosters rule

Rules in marine biomes

–Jordan’s rule
–Thorson’s rule
 Allen’s Rule (length of appendages)
Allen's rule is an ecogeographical rule posited by Joel Asaph
Allen in 1877.

The rule says that the body shapes and proportions (length of
appendages) of endotherms vary by climatic temperature by either
minimizing exposed surface area to minimize heat loss in cold
climates or maximizing exposed surface area to maximize heat loss
in hot climates.

It also stipulates that endothermic animals from hot climates

usually have ears, tails, limbs, snouts, etc. that are long and thin,
while equivalent endothermic animals from cold climates usually
have shorter and thicker body parts.
The sizes of extremities of the
jackrabbit (left) of the
Southwest and the arctic
snowshoe hare (right) reflect
adaptations to different
temperature regimes
Allen's rule predicts that endothermic animals with the same body
volume should have different surface areas that will either aid or
impede their heat dissipation.
In cold climates, Allen's rule predicts that animals should have
comparatively low ratios of surface area to volume. Because
animals in cold climates need to conserve as much heat as
possible,
 Bergmann's rule (body size)
Given by Carl Bergmann

It’s a ecogeographical rule that states that within a broadly

distributed taxonomic clade, populations and species of larger size
are found in colder environments, and species of smaller size are
found in warmer regions.
Or
Individuals of same species will be larger
in colder climate and smaller in warmer
climate.

Bergmann's rule is most often

applied to mammals and birds
which are endotherms.
Explanation of Bergmann’s rule: Larger animals have a lower
surface area to volume ratio than smaller animals, so they radiate
less body heat per unit of mass, and therefore stay warmer in cold
climates.
Warmer climates impose the opposite problem: body heat
generated by metabolism needs to be dissipated quickly rather than
stored within.

Surface area of cube = 6 a2 = 6 × 22 = 24

Volume of a cube = a3 = 23 = 8
Surface area to volume = 24/8 = 3
Surface area of a rectangle = 2 (lb + bh +hl) = 2 (2×1+1×4+4×2)=28
Volume of rectangle = l × b × h = 2×1×4 = 8
Surface area to volume = 28/8 = 3.5
CSIR, June 2018
Hesse's rule: Extension of Bergmann’s rule
It is also known as the heart–weight rule, states that species
inhabiting colder climates have a larger heart in relation to body
weight than closely related species inhabiting warmer climates
 Gloger's rule (color)
Was proposed by Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger

It is an ecogeographical rule which states that within a species of

endotherms, more heavily pigmented forms tend to be found in
more humid environments, e.g. near the equator.

Gloger found that birds in more

humid habitats tended to be darker
than their relatives from regions
with higher aridity. Over 90% of 52
North American bird species
studies conform to this rule.
One explanation of Gloger's rule in the case of birds appears to be
the increased resistance of dark feathers to feather- or hair-
degrading bacteria such as Bacillus licheniformis.

Feathers in humid environments have a greater bacterial load, and

humid environments are more suitable for microbial growth; dark
feathers or hair are more difficult to break down
Among mammals, there is a marked tendency in equatorial and
tropical regions to have a darker skin color than poleward relatives.
In this case, the underlying cause is probably the need to better
protect against excessive solar UV radiation at lower latitudes.

Exception to Gloger rule:

Tibetans and Inuit, who
have darker skin than
might be expected from
their native latitudes.
Dark complexion of Tibetans is apparently an adaptation to the
extremely high UV irradiation on the Tibetan Plateau, whereas in
the second case, the necessity to absorb UV radiation is alleviated
by the Inuit's diet naturally rich in vitamin D
 Jordan’s rule (number of vertebrae)
Number of vertebrae in marine fish increases along a gradient
from the tropics to cooler waters at higher latitudes
 Thorson’s rule (developmental mode)

Thorson's rule (named after Gunnar Thorson by S. A.

Mileikovsky in 1971).

It is an ecogeographical rule which states that benthic marine

invertebrates at low latitudes tend to produce large numbers of
eggs developing to pelagic (often planktotrophic [plankton-
feeding]) and widely dispersing larvae, whereas at high latitudes
such organisms tend to produce fewer and larger lecithotrophic
(yolk-feeding) eggs and larger offspring, often by viviparity or
ovoviviparity, which are often brooded.
•Higher number of species with direct development at higher
latitudes than in the tropics

•Higher biodiversity of marine invertebrates at higher latitudes

 Foster's rule (Island Rule)
Proposed by J. Bristol Foster in 1964
It is an ecogeographical rule in evolutionary biology stating that
members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the
resources available in the environment. For example, it is known
that pygmy mammoths evolved from normal mammoths on small
islands.
When animals are shifted from mainland to an island, smaller
creatures get larger when predation pressure is relaxed (due to the
absence of some of the predators of the mainland) and larger
creatures become smaller when food resources are limited (due to
land area constraints).
 Other Important
Rules and Principles
in Ecology
 Lindemens Law of Trophic Efficiency (10 % Law)

Introduced by Raymond Lindeman (1942)

According to this law, during the transfer of energy from organic
food from one trophic level to the next, only about ten percent of
the energy from organic matter is stored as flesh.
The remaining is lost during transfer, broken down in respiration,
or lost to incomplete digestion by higher trophic level.
 Insular biogeography (Island Biogeography)
Insular biogeography is the branch of biogeography that examines
the factors that affect the species richness of isolated natural
communities.

The theory was originally developed as island biogeography, by

Robert H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson in 1960s, to explain
species richness of actual islands, principally oceanic.

But now it is used in reference to any ecosystem that is isolated due

to being surrounded by unlike ecosystems, and has been extended
to mountain peaks, oases, fragmented forest, and even natural
habitats isolated by human land development.

Insular biogeography attempts to predict the number of species that

would exist on a newly created island.
An insular environment or "island" is any area of habitat suitable
for a specific ecosystem, surrounded by an expanse of unsuitable
habitat

The number of species found in an undisturbed insular environment

("island") is determined by immigration and extinction.

1. Distance effect: Immigration and emigration are affected by

the distance of an island from a source of colonists. Usually
this source is the mainland, but it can also be other islands.
This effect can be mathematically represented as an Inverse-square
law as
I = c o n s t . × d −2
where I is interaction and d is distance. It can take other forms such
as negative exponential, i.e.
I ∝ e −d
The effect of an island’s distance from the mainland on the amount of species richness.
The sizes of the two islands are approximately the same. Island 1 receives more random
dispersion of organisms, while island number two, since it is farther away, receives less
random dispersion of organisms.
2. Species-area curve or effect:

The rate of extinction once a species manages to colonize an island

is affected by island size.

Larger islands contain larger habitat areas and opportunities for

more different varieties of habitat.

Larger habitat size reduces the probability of extinction due to

chance events.

Habitat heterogeneity increases the number of species that will be

successful after immigration.
3. Rescue effect:

In addition to having an effect on immigration rates, isolation can

also affect extinction rates.

Populations on islands that are less isolated are less likely to go

extinct because individuals from the source population and other
islands can immigrate and "rescue" the population from
extinction; this is known as the rescue effect.
4. Target effect
In addition to having an effect on
extinction, island size can also
affect immigration rates.

This diagram shows the effect of an island’s size

Species may actively target larger
islands for their greater number of
resources and available niches; or,
larger islands may accumulate
more species by chance just
because they are larger.
on the amount of species richness. The diagram
shows two islands equidistant from the mainland.
Island 1 receives less random dispersion of
organisms. While island 2 receives more of the
arrows and therefore more random dispersion of
organisms.

This is the target effect.

Total number of reptilian and amphibian species on seven

small and large islands in the West Indies
Influencing factor
•Degree of isolation (distance to nearest neighbour, and
mainland)
•Length of isolation (time)
•Size of island (larger area usually facilitates greater diversity)
•The habitat suitability which includes:
•Climate (tropical versus arctic, humid versus arid, etc.)
•Initial plant and animal composition if previously attached
to a larger land mass (e.g. marsupials, primates)
•The current species composition
•Location relative to ocean currents (influences nutrient, fish,
bird, and seed flow patterns)
•Serendipity (the impacts of chance arrivals)
•Human activity
 CSIR June 2016

56. Which of the following is NOT a prediction arising out of

Wilson-MacArthur’s Theory of Island Biogeography?
1. The number of species on an island should increase with its
size/area.
2. The number of species should decrease with increasing distance
of the island from the source pool.
3. The turnover of species should be common and frequent.
4. Species richness on an island should be related to its average
distance to the neighbouring islands.
CSIR, Dec 2018
CSIR, June 2018
CSIR, June 2017
 Hamilton Rule (Kin Selection)
Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy that favors the
reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the
organism's own survival and reproduction.

Kin altruism is altruistic behaviour whose evolution is driven by

kin selection.
Kin selection is an instance of inclusive fitness, which combines the
number of offspring produced with the number an individual can
produce by supporting others, such as siblings.

Kin selection causes genes to increase in frequency when the

genetic relatedness of a recipient to an actor multiplied by the
benefit to the recipient is greater than the reproductive cost to the
actor.
Half-siblings are people who share
one parent but not both.
May be uterine siblings(maternal half
sibling) or agnate siblings (paternal
half-brothers/half-sisters).
In law, the term consanguine is used
in place of agnate.)
Hamilton proposed two mechanisms for kin selection: kin
recognition, where individuals are able to identify their relatives,
and viscous populations, where dispersal is rare enough for
populations to be closely related.

The viscous population mechanism makes kin selection and social

cooperation possible in the absence of kin recognition.

Nurture kinship, the treatment of individuals as kin when they live

together, is sufficient for kin selection, given reasonable
assumptions about dispersal rates.

Kin selection is not the same thing as group selection, where

natural selection acts on the group as a whole.
 CSIR, June 2015

Here, r is 0.25
C is 30,
For altruistic act to occur, rB > C
0.25xB > 30, i.e. B > 30/0.25, B > 120
 CSIR, December 2014

138. Assume that individual A wants to do an altruistic act to

individual B and that benefit and cost of doing this act are, in
‘fitness’ units, 40 and 12, respectively. According Hamilton's Rule,
A should perform the altruistic act only if B is his
1. Nephew
2. Niece
3. Grandson or granddaughter
4. Daughter or son
Here, B = 40 and C = 12
For altruistic act to occur, rB > C
i.E r > C/B
r > 12/40
r > 0.3
 CSIR, June 2014

110. Assume that in terms of 'genetic fitness' the 'benefit' of

performing an altruistic act to a relative is 500 units and the 'cost'
involved is 150 units.
Following Hamilton's Rule the act should be performed if the
relative is a
1. only brother. 2. nephew or niece.
3. brother or step-sister. 4. only step-sister.
CSIR, June 2019
CSIR, June 2018
CSIR, June 2018
CSIR, June 2016

Ans: 1
 Handicap principle (Zahavi handicap principle)
The handicap principle is a hypothesis originally proposed in 1975
by Israeli biologist Amotz Zahavi to explain how evolution may lead to
"honest" or reliable signaling between animals which have an obvious
motivation to bluff or deceive each other.
The handicap principle suggests that reliable signals must be costly to the
signaler, costing the signaler something that could not be afforded by an
individual with less of a particular trait.
For example, in the case of sexual selection, the theory suggests that
animals of greater biological fitness signal this status through
handicapping behaviour or morphology that effectively lowers this
quality. The central idea is that sexually selected traits function
like conspicuous consumption, signalling the ability to afford to squander
a resource. Receivers know that the signal indicates quality because
inferior quality signallers cannot afford to produce such wastefully
extravagant signals.
The theory predicts that a sexual ornament, or any other signal,
must be costly if it is to accurately advertise a trait of relevance to
an individual with conflicting interests.

Typical examples of handicapped signals include bird songs, the

peacock's tail, courtship dances, bowerbird's bowers, or even
possibly jewellery and humor.
 CSIR, June 2014

41. The long feather train of a peacock is quoted as an example

supporting
1. Hamilton's rule.
2. Zahavi's handicap principle
3. The Red Queen hypothesis.
4. Haldane's rule.
 Haldane's rule
Was proposed by J.B.S. Haldane in 1922
It states that if in a species hybrid only one sex is inviable or
sterile, that sex is more likely to be the heterogametic sex.
In other words
When in the F1 offspring of two different animal races one sex is
absent, rare, or sterile, that sex is the heterozygous sex
(heterogametic sex).
The heterogametic sex is the one with two different sex
chromosomes; in mammals, for example, this is the male
The rule includes both male heterogametic (XY or XO- type, such
as found in mammals and Drosophila fruit flies) and female
heterogametic (ZW-type, as found in birds and butterflies), and
some dioecious plants such as campions.
 Copes Rule
Cope's rule is named after the paleontologist Edward Drinker
Cope and was coined by Bernhard Rensch.

It states that evolution tends to

increase body size over geological
time in a lineage of populations

For example, the Eocene ancestors

of modern horses were about the
size of a dog. Since then, in the
lineages showing the largest
increases, horses have evolved to
become as much as 10 times
heavier
Hennig's progression rule In cladistics, the most primitive species
are found in earliest, central, part of group's area
Jarman-Bell principle The correlation between the size of an
animal and its diet quality; larger animals can consume lower
quality diet
Lack's principle: Birds lay only as many eggs as they can provide
food for
Rensch's rule: Sexual size dimorphism increases with size when
males are larger, decreases with size when females are larger
Rosa's rule: Groups evolve from character variation in primitive
species to a fixed character state in advanced ones
Schmalhausen's law: A population at limit of tolerance in one
aspect is vulnerable to small differences in any other aspect
Van Valen's law: Probability of extinction of a group is constant
over time
Dollo's law: Loss of complex traits is irreversible
Bateson's rule: Extra limbs mirror their neighbours
Deep-sea gigantism Larger bodies in deep-sea animals
Eichler's rule: Parasites co-vary with their hosts
Emery's rule: Insect social parasites are often in same genus as their
hosts
Fahrenholz's rule: Host and parasite phylogenies become congruent
Harrison's rule: Parasites co-vary in size with their hosts
Rapoport's rule: Latitudinal range increases with latitude
von Baer's laws: Embryos start from a common form and develop
into increasingly specialised forms
Williston's law: Parts in an organism become reduced in number and
specialized in function
Thank You
1. The pyramid of numbers is inverted in the case of
a) Parasitic food chain
b) Grassland ecosystem
c) Forest ecosystem
d) Lake ecosystem

2. The concept of ecological pyramid was first proposed by

a) E.P. Odum
b) A.G. Tansley
c) Juday
d) Charles Elton

3. The pyramid of energy in terrestrial ecosystem is

a) upright
b) inverted
c) spindle shaped
d) irregular
4. Which of the following ecological pyramid is always upright?
a) Pyramid of energy
b) Pyramid of number
c) Pyramid of biomass
d) none of these

5. The pyramid of numbers in a single tree is

a) upright
b) inverted
c) spindle shaped
d) none of these

6. A graphic representation of number of individuals of different species

belonging to each trophic level in a an ecosystem is known as
a) ecological pyramid
b) pyramid of biomass
c) pyramid of number
d) pyramid of energy
7. The pyramid of biomass is inverted in
a) Forest ecosystem
b) Grassland ecosystem
c) Fresh water ecosystem
d) Tundra

8. In pond ecosystem, the pyramid of biomass is

a) upright
b) inverted
c) spindle shaped
d) none of these

9. In grassland ecosystem, the pyramid of biomass is

a) upright
b) inverted
c) spindle shaped
d) none of these
10. Which of the following statement is incorrect regarding ecological
pyramids
a) The pyramid of energy is inverted in ocean ecosystem
b) The pyramid of biomass is inverted in aquatic ecosystem
c) The pyramid of numbers is upright in grass land ecosystem
d) The pyramid of biomass is upright in grass land ecosystem