Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 5 - Ecology and Sustainability
Chapter 5 - Ecology and Sustainability
Chapter 5
General Types of Species
• Native – naturally live and coexist – evolved
through natural selection
• Non-native (exotic or alien) – accidentally or
purposefully introduced
• Indicator – species that can alert to harmful
changes
Species native to
Washington State
Species not native to
Washington State
Frogs are good indicator species because the life histories
are vulnerable to environmental disruption
Plant, insect
prey expose
tadpoles to
insecticides
Decline in Frog Populations
•Tells us:
• Loss of habitat and fragmentation
• Climate change (droughts)
• Pollution
• Increase in ultraviolet radiation
Should we care about extinction?
(especially to an indicator species?)
or
(Income) – (Expenditures)
Population Dynamics
• Biotic Potential - “r”
• intrinsic rate of increase
• Rate at which a population would grow if it had
unlimited resources
• Reproductive capacity, or ability of a population to
produce offspring.
• Usually higher than replacement level.
• Leads to exponential growth curve.
Carrying Capacity
• Carrying Capacity - Number of individuals of a
species than can be indefinitely sustained in a
given area.
• “K” stands for carrying capacity
Exponential and Logistic Growth
Food
limit
1 million calories
10 mill calories
1 million calories
10 mill calories
Zooplankton
Nutrients
(nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon)
The primary sources of nitrogen associated with human activities collectively
put between 100 to 300 tons of nitrogen into the canal every year, broken
down as follows:
60% human
sewage 14% agriculture manure