INTRASPECIFIC COMPETITION

 Competition is an interaction between individuals caused by a shared requirement

for a resource

Can lead to a reduction in

 Survivorship
 Growth
 Reproduction

EXPLOITATION
 Competition is separated into two forms depending upon whether individuals
directly
interact (interference competition) or not (exploitation)
 Exploitation – competition is passive as individuals compete to use up resource.
e.g. plants competing for water, nutrients and light

INTERFERENCE COMPETITION
 Individuals become despotic and actively exclude others from using a resource
 e.g. the establishment of breeding territories in many birds.
 e.g. males fighting for access to females.
 Sometimes competition can take both forms.
 Cave beetles, Neapheanops tellkampf, dig for cricket eggs. Limited resource so
compete through exploitation
 However, at high beetle density beetles start to fight for digging
sites.

ONE-SIDED COMPETITION
 Competition can be one-sided
 e.g. a strong early seedling might shade a stunted later one
 Overwinter survival of red deer calves on Rhum declines with population size,
those smallest at birth most likely to perish.
 Thus, intra-specific competition is density dependent.

DENSITY DEPENDENT MORTALITY

 A classic study of flour beetles, Tribolium confusum, revealed density dependence
(under then overcompensating) in mortality. Different numbers of eggs
 placed with fixed amount of flour.
Exactly Compensating Density Dependence
 In trout there is under-compensating density dependence at lower densities
 At high densities never becomes over- compensating but exactly compensating

DENSITY DEPENDENT FECUNDITY

CARRYING CAPACITY
 Density where birth and death rate balance known as the carrying capacity.
 At low densities births > deaths and pop’n increases
 At higher densities deaths > births pop’n shrinks
 So populations moves towards the carry capacity (denoted by K) density which is a
stable equilibrium
 However, unpredictable environmental fluctuations in other factors mean that
constant carrying capacities are generally not seen in nature.
INTRASPECIFIC COMPETITION AND POPULATION SIZE
 Intraspecific competition will limit population size by its effects on mortality and
or reproduction.

POPULATION CYCLES
 Carrying capacity only really relevant where density dependence is not strongly
overcompensating.
 Overcompensation usually results in population cycling
.
NET RECRUITMENT CURVES
 Another way of viewing intraspecific competition is to consider numbers rather
than rates.
 Net recruitment is number of births minus number of
deaths over a set time interval.
 Vary considerably with the biology of different species.

SIGMOIDAL GROWTH CURVES

 Very simple model of population growth is the sigmoidal
 growth curve, which is too simplistic for many species but
 works well for some species/situations.

DENSITY DEPENDENT GROWTH

 Density dependence can affect other factors as well as survival and reproduction
 e.g. size declines in reindeer and limpets.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES: ASYMMETRIC COMPETITION

 Individuals may respond to intraspecific competition in different ways.
 e.g. at low densities sizes are often symmetrically distributed about the mean.
 However, at high densities size distributions can become skewed to the left of the
mean
 e.g. flax, Linun usitatissimum.