BIO120H:

30 Nov. 11

LECTURE 23:

E.O. Wilson – socio-biology, and biophilia

-started awareness for loss of biodiversity

Conservation Biology:
Global warming, climate change, loss of biodiversity, environmental pollution, human
famine, spread of infectious diseases, human population growth

Organismal response to climate change:

Migration (ecology) – move to more favourable conditions
Adaptation (evolution)
Go locally or globally extinct (evolution)
Organisms are effected by climate change, the phenology (time of biological events)
changes – when do organisms do things? Emerge, mate, etc.

Art Weis studied mustard in south California – the plants needed to flower BEFORE the
droughts annually that were getting earlier due to climate change – plants flowered earlier

Biodiversity: The number and kinds of living organisms in a given area

INTERspecific – species diversity
INTRAspecific – genetic diversity
Components: species, ecological, genetic, and phylogenic diversity

Three types of extinction:

Background – a couple through natural turnover; 1 species per year

Mass – very large due to natural catastrophes; ~4/ year
Anthropogenic – 4-6000/ year caused by US.

Major causes: Habitat destruction (climate change), overexploitation of species,

introduction of pests, predators and competitors.

Conservation biology: study of species negatively impacted by humans

Ecological issues in conservation biology:

Habitat preservation and species diversity
Application of island biogeographic theory to design nature reserves
Single large, or several small reserves?

LECTURE 22:

Evolutionary Adaptations – Invasive species

Lantana plant is invasive and has colonised the undergrowth of the jungles in India, tigers
don’t like the smell.
They go out into the open more and get killed by humans
Cane toads in Australia introduced
BIO120H:
Nile perch to African lakes caused cichlid fish species to go extinct
Asian carp introduction to Great Lakes will destroy biodiversity
Guam brown tree snake invasion – kills vertebrates, invades homes causing human
trauma
Super ants in Argentina spreading over the world – they kill all other ants

What are biological invasions? Traits commonly associated with invasion success.
Phenotypic plasticity vs. local adaptation in invaders. How can we control invaders?

Biological Invasions:
The successful establishment of a species in a region not previously occupied followed
by rapid range expansion; introduced, then becomes aggressive and expand
- Not every invasion is harmful

Native: An indigenous species that occurs wild in a given region, been there for millions
of years?
Alien: Introduced to a part of the world to which it is not native – humans are the largest
vector for introduction of invasive species

Consequences of invasive species

-disrupt ecological processes in communities
-displace native species, extinct them
-have adverse effects on human health
-socio-economic impacts through damage on fisheries, agriculture, forestry
-indirect: spraying pesticides/poisons, billions of dollars spent

Questions on invasive species:

Why are invading species only aggressive in their introduced and not their native ranges?
Are certain ecosystems more susceptible to invasions than others? (Disturbed
communities are more susceptible than others) What are the ecological and genetic
characteristics of successful invaders? Is their evidence for the contemporary evolution
of local adaptation in invaders? How can invaders be controlled?

White campion – found in Europe and America. Lorne Wolfe did a study to find how
many more selective pressures are on them – 17x greater in native land where all it’s
specialist predators and pests are

Attributes of invasives:
-rapid development to reproduction
-high reproductive output
-well-developed dispersal mechanisms
-broad ecological tolerance
-high phenotypic plasticity*
* ability of a genotype to alter it’s phenotype in response to environmental change – good
for unpredictable environments and adaptation

Weeding practises in rice

Latin America and Africa – weed removal involves the ability to distinguish visually
between the crop and the weed
BIO120H:
- weeds that look more like the crop escape detection

Herbicide use – weeds are becoming more resistant to herbicides

Zebra mussels – 30 000 – 1 000 000 larvae per season, extensive damage to water intake
pipes and fishing, but they’ve cleaned the water
Purple loosestrife – aquatic perennial native to Europe with nice flowers
- multiple introductions from the Europe, many genes to mix
- invades disturbed wetlands

Cline – variation across an environmental gradient

Water hyancinth – worst aquatic invader – can’t use herbicide

Management: Mechanical weeding, chemical herbicide, ecological burning, biological

control
Fisher: the amount of variability dictates how much success it will have in evolution

23 Nov. 11

LECTURE 21: Phylogenics and Macroevolution

Carolus Linnaeus – father of taxonomy, invented binomial nomenclature and hierarchical

system of classification (kingdoms>phyla>classes>oders>families>genera>species)

Purpose:
As a key to literature about the organism
Has predictive power – what it relates to
Enables interpretation of origins and evo. history

Taxon – a named taxonomic unit at any level (KPCOFGS)

Taxonomy – the theory and practise of classification
Systematics – the study of biodiversity and evo. relationship between organisms

Contrasting schools of thought:

Phenetics: Classifying species based on looks, appearance (obsolete) VS.
Cladistics: Classifying species based on phylogenic relationships

Willi Hennig – birth of cladistics and building phylogenic trees

- they are a hypothesis about evo. history

Darwin: only visual in the Origin was a tree

Monophyletic group – single ancestor gave rise to all species in a taxon, and none in any
other taxon
Non-monophyletic group – A taxon whose members are derived from two or more
ancestral forms not common to all ancestors
BIO120H:
Reconstructing phylogenic history:
Identifying ancestral and derived traits
Ancestral: A trait shared exactly with a common ancestor
Derived: A trait differing from the ancestral model in a lineage
Homology: Similarity of traits due to shared ancestry (e.g. pelvic bone in humans and
whales)
Homoplasy: Similarity of traits due to convergent evolution (e.g. bats and insect wings)
Convergent Evolution: The evolution of structures that look and function similarly due
to shared ecology (environment, niche) of unrelated organisms

Molecular biology in phylogeny:

Life is related through branching descent (evolution)
Common genetic code is the proof of this
Evolutionary relationships are reflected through DNA and proteins
Genes can be sequenced for different species
Species are assessed for changes in nucleotide sequences
These changes can be used to deduce a phylogenic tree

Wayne & Dave Maddison – tree of life webproject with 10 000 webpages about
biodiversity and phylogenic relationships

Using phylogenies to understand evo. of traits:

Origin of new trait resulting in adaptive radiation
Carriers of new trait can use new resources or habitats
Usually associated with rapid evolutionary diversification

Scott Hodges – researched Columbine flower; acquired a nectar spur, then adaptive
radiation caused many, many lengths to evolve, creating diversity and change

Water strider’s evolutionary arms race

Females can store sperm, therefore mating is not as desirable for them (predation)
Resist mating attempts, so males evolve grasping structures, while females also evolve
Escalates like an arms race

LECTURE 20:

Speciation – how species diverge to the point where they were reproductively isolated
from interbreeding

Concept of species is very hard to pin down, even harder for Darwin, who had no concept
of genetics and reproductive isolation

Key Questions: What ecological and genetic conditions are required for speciation to
occur? How does reproductive isolation evolve? How many genes are involved? Is the
evolution of adaptation required for speciation?

What is a species? - involves the problem of how best to define a species. There are
many species concepts:
Taxonomic (morphological): phonetic, genetic, ecological, phylogenetic
BIO120H:
- based primarily on distinct morphological differences
Biological (genetic): recognition, cohesion, Darwinian, evolutionary
- based on interfertility (crossability) among individuals
Concepts vary among different groups of organisms – no universal species concept

Ernst Mayr – won nobel prize at 94, suggested the BSC as a group of interbreeding
natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups, which
Dobzhansky (fruit fly geneticist) first suggested to him

The Californian salamander shows geographical isolation

What causes reproductive isolation?
Finding a compatible mate, mating and fertilisation, development of zygote, adult growth
and survival, reproduction and fertility of offspring
RIMs include – premating and postmating isolation

Premating – geographical, ecological, temporal, behavioural, mechanical, and prevention

of gamete fusion

Apple maggot flies – before introduction of apple, only lived on hawthorn; after two
species diverged to live on hawthorn and apple

Mimulus flowers – have different pollinators, so can’t interbreed in the field, but can
cross!

Postmating – inviability, sterility, abnormal development of hybrids, F2 breakdown

As genetic distance increase, so does post zygotic isolation

Mule – a sterile hybrid from male donkey and female horse

Odd number polyploids are sterile – allopolyploidy is between two species, auto just one

LECTURE 19:

Fitness – how successful an organism is at passing its genes to the next generation
Selective Advantage – some individuals are better suited to their environment than others
and have higher fitness

Artificial Selection
- domesticated plant and animals; selection experiments in genetics
- selected by humans with a purpose or goal – larger, more seeds, etc. (agricultural)

Natural Selection
- all organisms
- selected by abiotic/biotic factors
- no purpose

Polygenic/quantitative inheritance shows a bell-shaped curve

- size of an organism, other things affected by many small genes
BIO120H:
Types of Natural selection:
Stabilising – no change in the mean/avg individuals, extremes die off
Directional – mean shifts, and variant value are the same, favours one extreme
Disruptive – favours both extremes

Example: Birth Weight (Stabilising effect); small and large die

Galapagos finch beak size (directional effect); change in abundance of certain seeds,
harder, required larger beaks
African finch beak size – two sources of food, one beak shapes specialises into two in
order to specialise on different strengths of seeds; could lead to speciation

The peppered moths white morph gets eaten more in cities where trunks are darker
Kettlewell did experiments that were iffy on the selective pressures on the moths
Hopi Hoekstra at Harvard looking at mouse coat colour variations on sand or dark
surfaces, caused by pollution darkening

A.D. Bradshaw showed that a few species of grasses colonised areas of soil where heavy
metals from mine tailings occur. They detoxify the soil, and spread their genes to their
offspring, however are very poor when competing in ideal settings.

Richard Lenksi founded experimental evolution

9 Nov. 11

LECTURE 17: Organismal reproductive diversity

Asexual
Sexual > Dioecious vs. Hermaphrodite > Cross-fertilisation & self-fertilisation

Water flea – reproduces sexually in warmer turbulent water, and asexually in cool calm
water
Water hyacinth – reproduce through clonal (asexual) and sexual reproduction in different
ecological environments

Darwin on sex: We don’t understand the cause of sexuality – why is there sex? Why
share genes? You’re halving your genetic contribution to the next generation
- More variability increases fitness?

Costs of sex
- time and energy to attract mates
- energetic costs
- risk of predation and infection
- cost to producing males
- 50% less genetic transmission
- break up of adaptive gene combinations (i.e. two genes work well together, but lost via
recombination) and progeny is less fit

Canadian researchers on the evolution of sex – Sarah Otto, Aneil Agrawal, Graham Bell
BIO120H:

Population of asexual increases at twice the speed because if female clones, make more
reproducing females; sexual produces males, which can’t reproduce (COST OF
PRODUCING MALES)

Transmission bias favours asexual selection as females can keep 100% of their genes in
the next generation

Advantages of sex:

Bringing together favourable mutations

Benefits of genetic variation in variable environments – short term benefit – “lottery
model” – is it better to get one ticket and photocopy it a thousand times, or get one
thousand tickets?
- spatially hetero environments – Tangled Bank; these favour sex as it allows the
forming of adaptations across the environment
- temporally hetero environment – Red Queen; environments changes over time
* Many theoretical models exist, showing both are important, but focus on either or.

Long Term Benefits

Asexual takes a lot time for mutations to arise to give it the three mutations to get to
optimal genotype ABC
Sexual allows mixing, doesn’t require waiting for each mutation, and also eliminate
deleterious genes faster

Short-term benefits

L. Becks and A. Agrawal experiments show data in how selection can facilitate the
evolution of sex using the rotifer planktonic freshwater animal in homo and hetero
environments

Evolutionary history of asexuality:

- asexuality (parthenogenesis) is more common in invertebrates and rare in vertebrates
- asexuality is much more common in plants though most use both types
- asexual species usually are at the tips of their phylogenies ( their long term evolutionary
potential is low due to lack of genetic variation – they get killed off by something, wiped
out due to rapid environmental changes

*** Bdelloid rotifers – around for millions of years and very diverse, BUT NO SEX! :O
- no males in populations!

Two different sex systems:

- separate sexes (dioecy) with females and males, forcing obligate outbreeding (mostly
vertebrates)
- combined sexes (hermaphroditism) providing opportunities for diverse patterns of
mating – most plants

Who breeds with who and how often?

- Mates less closely related than random is a sign of outbreeding
BIO120H:
- Mates more closely related than random is a sign of inbreeding
* is a continuum

What are the genetic consequences of inbreeding?

- genotypic frequencies are changed (more homozygotes)
- allele frequencies will not change
- heterozygosity reduced by 50% per generation with self-fertilisation
- homozygosity for deleterious recessive alleles result in inbreeding depression (reduction
in fitness from homozygosity of recessive fatal alleles – selected AGAINST)

Population 1: Clonal reproduction

Population 2: Inbreeding – two genotypes, both homozygous, no heteros,

Heterozygosity decreases at a steeper rate with smaller populations

Inbreeding depression
- reduction in fitness in inbred offspring in comparison with outcrossed offspring
- lower fitness, fertility

LECTURE 16: The maintenance and measurement of genetic variation

Foundations of population genetics:

R.A. Fisher – theoretical population genetics, Neo-Darwinism (all did all of these v)
J.B.S. Haldane – showed continuous variation and Darwinian natural selection were
entirely consistent with Mendel’s laws
S. Wright – demonstrated evolutionary significance of genetic variation leading to several
key questions and development of the field of ecological and evolutionary genetics

People now wanted to go out into the field to study these genetic variations – different
shells, spots, flowers colours, and how selection for these traits is MAINTAINED

What processes influence patterns of genetic diversity in natural population, what types
occur in populations, how do we measure amounts of variation in population?

What are the important parameters used to measure patterns of genetic variation

POLYMORPHISM (P): proportion of gene in a sample that are variable – more than one
different type of allele at one locus (polymorphic genes)

HETEROZYGOSITY (H): average frequency of heterozygous individuals per gene locus

What processes influence genetic diversity?

i) MUTATION: Gen 1 – 3 diploid individuals
- source of genetic variation
- occurs randomly
ii) RECOMBINATION: introduces new combinations of mutations into a population
iii) Random genetic drift: random sampling effects every generation
BIO120H:
- drift important when populations become small (decrease in genetic variability)
iv) NATURAL SELECTION:
a) purifying (negative) selection:
Mutations that reduce fitness are removed by selection
Reduces diversity and variation, but individuals survive better
b) positive selection (adaptation)
Mutations that increase fitness, which become fixed
c) balancing selection
Natural selection maintains diversity/variability
e.g. heterozygote advantage (malaria, sickle-cell anemia)
Therefore, all of these factors increase or decrease variability within population
- controversies in bio involve importance of these forces in evolution

Diverse mechanisms that maintain genetic variability

1.) Mutation-selection balance
- less fit genotypes maintained by repeated mutations, but cleansed by selection
2.) Different selective forces
- hetero advantage, frequency dependent selection (form of selection dependent
on frequency of genotypes or phenotypes in a population; e.g. sex as a phenotype – what
is the ratio of male to female that benefits both the most? 50-50), and fitness varies in
space and time (one mutation that is neutral is one situ can be harmful or beneficial in
another – hot, dry adapted organisms put in the frickin’ Arctic)
3.) Variation selectively neutral, Motou Kimura says many genes exist that don’t affect
fitness
- alleles at polymorphic loci do not differ in fitness and hence none eliminated by
selection

Early evidence for the existence of genetic variation

-Selection experiments on quantitative traits in different groups of organisms
-Involves controlled breeding and selection of individuals for many generations
- ARTIFICIAL SELECTION

Selection response for bristle number in fruit flies

- average forty – mate only individuals with highest hair number (sex)
- selection line goes up – more hairs appear on flies
- random mating reintroduced and selection line went down

Selection response in maize (artificially selected for most oil)

- bred both highest and lowest concentrations of oil to see selection line rates

John Kelly – worked with monkey flowers in a wild population and saw there was much
variability in the flower size

These increasing selection rates show that all these initial populations had high
variability. These studies show that genetic variation exists for polygenic traits within a
group of organisms, but don’t hold for all organisms – flowers don’t have hair bristles,
flowers don’t compare with the data from maize.
BIO120H:
There is no key information on population genetic parameters (P & H), comparative
studies are difficult as the traits studied are group-specific

Classical School – T.H. Morgan, H.J. Muller

Balance School – E.B. Ford, T. Dobzhansky
Two schools differed in their predictions on how much genetic variation occurs in natural
populations
- Balance school studied IN THE FIELD, saw more variation as organisms face
more challenges in the field than in laboratory, realm of classical school

Classical: worked with lab mutants, high homozygosity, low polymorphism, wild type is
the best genotype; purifying selection reduces diversity
Balanced: worked with natural populations, low homo, high polymorphism, no best or
ideal genotype; balancing selection favours diversity (this space is different from this
place – adaptations are VERY locally specific, within a space of yards for instance, a
plant may favour another place due to a rock that blocks sun, adapts to it)

R.C. Lewontin (Harvard) discovered allozyme (different forms of same protein) gel
electrophoresis provided a way to ask – what proportion of genes are variable
(polymorphic)? a fundamental dispute between classical and balanced school.
- Initiated large scale surveys of electrophoretic variation, rejecting classical
school
- Monomorphic gene will have exactly the same speed of protein migration in a gel
- Polymorphic genes will have differing speeds of proteins in different alleles

Genetic diversity in generalist vs. specialist barnyard grasses

Generalist: any species that has ability to adapt to and inhabit many different
environments will have a lot of variability
Specialist: species in a homozygous environment will have low diversity

Advantages of studies of enzyme polymorphisms

- many loci can be examined
- can be used in nearly any organism
- loci codominant, heterozygotes can be identified
- variation examined close to DNA level (little influence of environment as in studying
phenotype)
- provides genetic marker loci for other studies
Variation is largely neutral, not under selection. It can’t show us how many hairs on a
fly, but it allows us to make comparative studies between organisms

Contrasting levels of polymorphisms in rare vs. common plant species – result

widespread species have more genetic variability than rare species

Into the Genomic Era – we can now sequence down to the DNA levels
- With a sequencer, we can get down to single nucleotide polymorphisms (differences
down to the A, C, T, and G nitrogenous bases!)

Stephen Wright – what happens to the diversity of a crop during the process of
domestication?
BIO120H:
- looked at maize vs. teosinte (wild corn)
- found MUCH LESS variation at SNP level in maize; estimate that 1200 genes were the
target of artificial selection in domestication of this crop

Human Genome Project – there is no single genome, everyone is different

2 Nov. 11

LECTURE 15: Variation

GENETICS
• Variation – variation among individuals in a population
• Heredity – progeny resemble their parents more than unrelated individuals
ECOLOGY
• Selection – some forms better at surviving and breeding in a given environment
But Darwin had no understanding of genetics and the mechanism of inheritance,
Mendel’s law not yet created

Genotype
• Genetic constitution of an organism –used in relation to a particular gene or gene
combinations e.g. Aa, AaBB
Phenotype
• The organism as observed – used when discussing a trait or a feature of an organism
that varies; what you SEE when you look at organism; outward manifestation of
genotype
Genome
• The entire organism’s DNA including both genes and non-coding regions
Some basic terms used in genetics

• The functional unit of inheritance

• A unit of hereditary information located on the chromosomes consisting of DNA
• A DNA sequence composed of codons
*essential for a specific biological function
Complex concept – various definitions
*A sequence of 3 nucleotides that makes up the genetic code

Where does genetic variation come from?

- mutation
- recombination
- gene flow
- hybridization

Independent assortment & recombination generate diversity

- results from sexual reproduction, in any given generation, input from mutation is very
small

Mutations in Fruit Flies

- dominant has red eyes, recessive has white eyes
- homeotic mutations transpose organs, usually fatal
BIO120H:
A single nucleotide mutation in gene coding human beta-haemoglobin molecule cause
sickle-cell anaemia

1983 Nobel Prize awarded to McClintock for her discovery of ‘jumping genes’, or mobile
genetic elements in maize, arising by mutations can jump around the genome (from their
position in the chromosome, moving somewhere else)

Mutant in the field, a flower colour differing from others

- Darwinian fitness – how many copies of your genes you pass on

Mutation, ultimate source of genetic variation

- stable change in DNA sequence results in change of genotype
- rate of mutation is very low, but variable
- effects: neutral, deleterious (bad for health), lethal, beneficial; in many cases their
fitness effects depend on environment
- to affect evolution, must occur in germ cells, somatic mutations aren’t inherited

Characteristics of mutation
- mutation is unstoppable despite cellular mechanisms to correct errors during DNA
replication
- mutation is not directed by organism, random w/ effects on fitness
- rates depend on type of mutation, as well as type of gene
- environmental pollution affect mutation rate

Distribution of fitness effects of new mutations

- rate of lethal, neutral, beneficial, etc.
- few are beneficial, many are neutral and harmful

Motoo Kimura
- theoretical population geneticist to recognise importance of neutral mutations

Humans carries 3-5 recessive LETHAL alleles – cause death when homozygous
- affects offspring of inbreeding (genes more commonly at similar loci with family
members)

Mendel’s Laws
- blending inheritance affects height and body weight
- Mendel’s peas showed yellow dominance in F1
- F2 showed ¾ phenotype and 1/2/1 genotypes

Discrete vs. Continuous traits

- discrete – inheritance controlled by 1 or 2 genes
- continuous – complex inheritance by many ‘polygenes’ of small effect each

Genetic Polymorphism
- can be put into either two categories – this snake is either white or black
- the occurrence of two or more alleles in the same loci that the less common occurs more
than 5% of the time
BIO120H:
Height is variable – not just “tall and short” categories; there are many nuances
- height is heritable and controlled by hundreds of genes

Gene number and phenotypic distribution

1 gene: 25%, 50%, 25%

2 genes: 5 possibilites
3 genes: 8 phenotypes…

Discontinuous variation – Mendelian

- major genes, dominance and recessiveness, genetic polymorphism
Continuous variation – Quantitative
- polygenes, selection response, artificial selection experiments

LECTURE 14: What Darwin saw; a geographical perspective on biodiversity and

adaptation

Darwin made a 5 year trip around the world on the Beagle, was the ship’s naturalist
- from the U.K., in an oak woodland environment with low species diversity
- like here; landing in Northern Brasil was very different

Failed student of medicine and clergy, was not a trained naturalist

Tropical rainforest of Brasil

- high biodiversity in plant and animals compared with temperate zones
- more biotic interactions especially co-evolved mutualisms between plants and animals,
largely due to no winter months, evolution greater, b/c more life cycles per year
- rapid growth of pests and disease against plants

In tropics, with a lot of diversity comes very low density – members of the same species
are very spread apart
- Darwin thought, how do they mate? If trees are so far away, they require a relationship
with wind, pollinators, or self-pollinate
- largely evergreen, so the canopy blocks out wind from being an effective method of
pollination
- animals are better at pollinating; plants have coevolved with them to reproduction

Daniel Janzen marked bees and released them to see how far they go in trapline foraging
- meaning, they only go to the same species of plants and memorise the routes
- can travel 23 km in a day

Dispersal of the fertilised seedlings is also important

- most seedlings establish themselves far away from maternal tree
- old trees have pests and diseases and can easily kill the young trees

Ant-plant mutualism
- Acacia plants have hollowed out thorns to support ants living in them
- gives them “beltian body” protein, and extrafloral nectars
BIO120H:
- the ant keeps the plant safe from herbivory – kills other insects
- ‘recruits’ the animal to provide protection – mutualism

Ant-plant mutualism II (Peru)

- Devil’s Garden are recognised by Aboriginal peoples; no other plants will grow near
- have swollen stems with holes that serve as nest sites for ants
- seeds land around there, but ants come and squirt them with formic acid
- prevents them from competing with the devil’s garden nesting site

Epiphytes are common in tropics, increasing species diversity

- epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants
- this style of living has evolved in many different growth forms of plants (trees, lichens,
etc.) independently – convergence
- are specific trees favoured? How do they get up there? What pollinates them?

Lots of examples of adaptation

- pollinator signals – flowers change colour when pollinated
- leaf mimicry
- anti-herbivore strategies – red, young leaves b/c insects can’t see red
- Red bracts next to very small flowers, (hyp.) attract pollinators to help plant compete

Darwin finds fossils of extinct mammals

- the glyptodon, makes him think the world is dynamic, species ever changing

Next stop, Patagonia:

- different environment; abiotic factors dominate how organisms work
- abrupt tree lines caused by physical factors like snow melt
- much lower diversity, less interspecies interaction
- members of the same species are close together, can use wind pollination

Familiar and unfamiliar animal groups

- the bumblebee has much darker hairs to warm up
- swans have black necks

Adaptations to animal grazing

- spiny cushion plants are very sharp, animals avoid them
- fruits have adhesive hooks dispersed in hairy animal furs

Galapagos Islands
15 main volcanic islands, very young
- populated via dispersal from South American mainland
- certain animals can’t make the dispersal to the oceanic islands
- Darwin only spent 5 weeks here, but got his most important ideas here
- is now a UNESCO protected site for ecotourism
- his first impressions – “Nothing could be less inviting than the first appearance”

Volcanic landscapes of recent origins on Isabela

- prickly pear cactus are the first colonisers of this environment
- very tough environment, adapted for dry
BIO120H:
- have large fruits dispersed by birds
- bring in seeds in their poo to an island

Peter and Rosemary Grant:

- 35 years, MEASURED natural selection on beak shape and size on Darwin’s finches
- mark, recapture studies on EVERY member on the Daphne Major islands

Adaptive radiation
- the evolution of ecological and phenotypic diversity within a rapidly multiplying
lineage as a result of speciation
- many different types of food has evolved species most fit to harvest / collect it
- recent ancestry from common ancestor, phenotype-environment correlation, trait utility,
rapid speciation are signals of this

Galapagos Giant tortoise

- large, easy to catch; very hard to conserve against poachers
- many types of tortoise thanks to radiation “Lonesome George”

Marine iguanas feed on seaweed

- have problems with salt ingestion
- have adapted a nasal gland that excretes salt crusts to their forehead

Loss of flight on oceanic islands

- flying is used to escape predators
- no predators on oceanic islands
- not flying means no wings, less energy use
- flying can be dangerous – no land for a long way, wind can blow them out far and
drown them

Sexual selection
- males have large, ridiculously showy parts to attract females
- male-male competition (armour, weapons; antlers)
- female choice (the brightest, strongest, etc.)

Australia
- distinct flora and fauna, high frequency of endemism (species restricted to a particular
place, only occurs in ONE place)
- uniqueness due to long history of geographic isolation
- has island characteristics, endemism, radiation, unique adaptation

Wet tropical forests

- uncommon due to dry climate
- contain epiphytes (same convergences in this type of forest)

Dry forests composed of Eucalyptus (Gum Tree)

- contain ‘gum’, nasty chemicals to defend from herbivory
- Koalas have evolved the ability to detoxify the chemicals – phenolics and terpenes
- dry gum trees can actually EXPLODE.
BIO120H:
Rodent pollinated Banksia
- shrub plant with flowers on the ground where rodents forage

Darwin returned to the UK, got married and started to work on his theory

26 Oct. 11

LECTURE 13: Darwin’s Big Idea and How it Changed Biology

Darwin Year in 2009; a statue exists of him in South China.

1. Evolution as the central unifying idea of biolgy
2. Development of Darwin’s idea
3. Evolution facts and fiction (scientific creationism, intelligent design)

Theory of Evolution
- lving things have changed gradually from one form into another over time
- challenges idea of special creation – direct creation of all things in effectively their
present form
Involved two controversial ideas:
- Concept of a changing universe which replaced view of a static world
- Is a phenomenon with no purpose – replaced the view that the causes of all phenomena
had to have a purpose; there’s no final goals, will not bring up adaptations, is entirely
random
Does gravity have a purpose? A blizzard? No; it just is. xD

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck
- first to use the term ‘evolution’
- viewed as the bad guy, just because he got it slightly wrong
- he viewed evolution as a linear rather than branching view of evolution
- each organism accumulates more complex traits, life always get more
characteristics, simple forms evolve directly to complex forms
Giraffe neck grows OVER IT’S LIFETIME (one individual) as it reaches for higher
leaves. The trait is now changed, and gets passed on to offspring; How Lamarck viewed
evolution
- we don’t pass on tans or amputations

August Weisman Germ Plasm Theory

1. Inheritance only by germ cells (gametes); somatic cells (soma) don’t function as
agents of heredity
2. Thus genetic information cannot pass from the soma to gamete and onto the next
generation
3. Genetic information only flows from DNA to proteins, never in the reverse

Charles Darwin & Alfred Russell Wallace

Co-discovery of the chief mechanism of evolution
BIO120H:
Wallace idolised Darwin; read his first book, his diary on The Beagle as his travelled
around the world collected specimens for Victorian rich people
- was the ship’s naturalist; was charged with collecting rocks and organisms for museums
and scientists to study and put on display

Events leading up to the publication of the Origin

- After return from Beagle, took 20 years to accumulate evidence for the theory of
evolution; took very good notes on his observations
- 1844: wrote, but didn’t publish an essay on natural selection; was nervous of rebukes
from church
- 1856: began work on natural selection book, received a book from Wallace called On
the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type
- went to other scientists and asked what to do about the fact that Wallace’s work was
very similar to his own findings
- at the presentation, neither was there, and the idea was not very controversial to the
scientists
- the publication of the BIG book was very controversial

The Origin of Species

Contains two components
- all organisms have descended with modification from common ancestors
(microevolution)
- the major agent of modification is natural selection (the mechanisms which CAUSES
evolution) operating on variation among individuals, but acts on a population
(macroevolution)
- our genes live and die with us, we don’t evolve, individuals don’t

Development of Darwin’s ideas on evolution – exploration

- Darwin was of the age of a university student, basically an undergrad
- Influenced by John Henslow (botanist) at Cambridge
- Voyage on Beagle around the world as ship’s naturalist
- Returned and never went anywhere again (:\) and developed his ideas, conducting
experiments and writing books (25), living in seclusion

Gradualism
- read Charles Lyell’s (geologist) book Principles of Geology
- argued that the landscapes in dynamics if we use scales of thousands of years
- the earth is dynamic, why can’t organisms be too? thought Darwin

Species Vary
Various patterns of Galapagos mockingbirds
- Darwin’s doubt of which species these mockingbirds belong to made his think that there
was a bit of a blur between them
- the 4 similar species descended from a South American mainland ancestor

Thomas Malthus
- in modern terms, our population’s footprint is too big; we can’t support 7 billion people
with our earth’s resources
BIO120H:
- species have a carrying capacity, where populations cannot grow anymore or they begin
to struggle for resources
- Darwin realised that there is competition and certain individuals do better than other in
these situations, and only the ones with favourable genes will survive to pass on their
genes

Darwinian world view

- variation among individuals in a population is not imperfection; is what natural
selection operates to fashion better adapted forms
- there is no typical individual and everything else is a deviant
- people would collect a ‘type specimen’
- not what should be the case
- Should we pick a type specimen for humans? Would it be white, black; tall, short, etc?
Involves a move away from selfishness and the notion that all individuals in a population
are equal, of population thinking

Requirements for Darwin’s theory to work

Variation: variation among individuals in a population
Heredity: progeny resemble their parents more than unrelated individuals
Selection: some forms better at surviving and breeding than others in a given
environment; unfit individuals will die and not pass on their genes.

What’s the problem?

- people are uncomfortable with the idea that we descended from animals
- teaching it takes away the meaning of life for people?

Creationist Doctrine
- literal reading of book of Genesis
- creation of all living organisms by divine order in 6 days
- all types of organisms individually created and designed by a purposeful creator
*Anyone who believes in Genesis as a literal description of history holds a world view
that is entirely incompatible with evolution, and of science itself*

Scientific creationism is not science because:

- it’s not supported by empirical observations
- it doesn’t infer principles from observation as does all science
- its assumption are untestable

LECTURE 12: Introduction to Evolutionary Biology

Can’t think of ecology and evolution as separate; they help us understand each other
Basic concepts presented in class will be on the test from the book – dates and Latin
names are unimportant

Focus on individuals in science are important – learn about specific scientists who’ve
contributed to the field, and remember their names and experiments for the test
BIO120H:
Biology is structured into different levels of organisation – molecules, cells, organisms,
populations, communities, ecosystems. The focus in this section is on the population
level to help us learn the focus on evolution.
- Darwin focussed on populations as a unit of evolution

Research is founded on questions and curiosity:

Scopes of questions:
Small: build up to contribute towards solving a big question
Large: Usually not addressed by one experiment, needs small ones to provide
cases for proof; why did sex evolve? Why is most biodiversity in the tropics?
- Not one cause for the answers to large questions

How vs. Why Questions

- molecular and cell biologists ultimately worked on small questions; signalling
pathways, mechanisms etc. The how questions
- working with population involves field work and understanding functions of things,
figuring out if the trait is adaptive, etc. The why questions, significance

Approaches used in evolutionary biology

A variety of approaches are used to address questions; the best studies use more than one
source of evidence:
• Observational – describe and quantify, measuring out in the field
• Theoretical – develop models – verbal – what do you think is going to happen,
graphical – is the relationship linear? How does one variable effect another,
mathematical; collecting data without theoretical predictions is useless
• Comparative – obtain same data from many species; does something apply to many
species? How can we generalise data? Using phylogenic trees, show organisms have
similar parts, mechanisms, behaviours, etc.
• Experimental – manipulate a system to address a specific hypothesis; requires an
experimental design and statistical analysis – see if your predictions hold up

Important assumptions about evolution verified by scientific study

• Organisms on earth have changed through time
• The changes are gradual not instantaneous
• Lineages split or branch by speciation resulting in the generation of biodiversity –
caused by speciation events
• All species have common ancestors – can track that now through DNA analysis
• Most evolutionary change results from natural selection - the only process responsible
for the evolution of biodiversity and adaptation
Biodiversity and adaptation are therefore products of evolution
Biodiversity: the variety of life on earth; the number and kinds of living organisms in a
given area
- people often limit this to species diversity – there are wild cats, and squirrels and
foxes, etc living here
- there is also genetic diversity, which is what allows species to evolve and adapt to
crisis situations
- species go extinct for two reasons: lack of genetic diversity, and habitat loss
- therefore genetic diversity is a part of biodiversity; will be a large part of this
section
BIO120H:
Adaptation: can be a state or process;
State: any trait that contributes to fitness by making an organism better able to
survive or reproduce in a given environment; a noun
Process: the evolutionary process that leads to the origin and maintenance of such
traits; a verb
The legacy of Charles Darwin

THEORY OF EVOLUTION:
The central unifying concept of biology; nothing makes sense in biology without
evolution – Theodosius Dobzhansky (fruit fly geneticist from the Soviet Union who
moved to US)
Affects many other areas of knowledge; people use evolutionary paradigms to explain
things in other ways – advertisements, news, etc.
One of the most influential concepts of Western thought – where we came from, our
origins

James Watson: Evolution is a fact accepted by everyone except those fundamentalists

that based their thinking on doctrine and religion, don’t give me facts and evidence, I
have my beliefs.

Evolutionary biology divides into two subfields that pertain to how evolution is studied
Evolutionary Mechanisms: MICROevolution
Evolution history: MACROevolution
- the best studies integrate information and evidence from both

Evolutionary Mechanisms
- determining ecological and genetic mechanisms responsible for evolutionary change
- misconception that evolution only involve dinosaurs and things in the past
- evolution is happening now – antibiotic resistance
- involve population-level studies of natural selection, adaptation, and speciation using
diverse organisms
- tests of theoretical models by experiment, going out in the field or lab

Evolutionary History
- relationships between organism and the tree of life – looking back in the phylogenic tree
to find common ancestors
- shows affinities of organism and provides a basis for classification, which species
belongs to which larger groups of species? Involves taxonomy (naming) and systematics
- uses comparative data from many sources – biogeography, paleontology, morphology,
development, and genomics
- we can now look RIGHT AT DNA and compare organisms’ DNA structures

Spencer Barrett’s projects in evolutionary biology:

- discovery of Darwin’s missing form of water hyacinth and patterns of genetic diversity
- he looks specifically at genetics in his research
- worked with it’s invasive habits – uses clonal propagation ; can photocopy it’s own
genes very quickly – the SAME genome; one individual can experience thousands of
different environments – one side of the hill, or another, etc.
- These plants get dissicated when the water levels drop – can only survive as a seed
BIO120H:
- When they become rooted, they get a signal to flower and make a seed

Darwin worked on these plants – they cross-pollinate, though they are hermaphrodites
- there are versions with long, medium and short styles that pollinate each other
- JBS Haldane – spent years looking for the ‘shortstyled’ water hyacinth

Spencer found it; his professor told him to dump his thesis and work on this LOL
Now we know this short-styled form only occur in the Amazon
- the founder effect shows the by chance, humans only spread the long and mid types of
this flower from the small sample of the genetic diversity of the source population

Cape Town has really high biodiversity, he spends much time there
Found the “Rat’s Tail”, with red flowers on the ground, and a large tail branch pointing
up
- in the old world, birds perch to pollinate plants, whereas in the new world,
hummingbirds and others hover
After clipping off the perches (the ‘tail’) the flowers received very few pollinators
- they started self-fertilising, and produced poor progeny
Those with the perch were more successful

19 Oct. 11

LECTURE 11:

Species distribution and abundance

Glacier lily – flowering plants are most numerous where soil surface is rocky
They are long-lived, iteroparous perennials
Seed dispersal experiment:
- plants open and the wind disperses them
- they are pathetic dispersers, 20 cm
As European version has elaiosomes which attract ants to move them around

How do the seeds germinate in the rocky environment?

4 trials, buried, organic soil; surface, organic soil; buried gravel, exposed gravel
Contrary to hypothesis, they only survived in buried organic soil
Seeds subjected to desiccation unless in moist soil

Seedlings are concentrated away from where the plants are, contrary to small dispersal
Rockiness and soil moisture are negatively associated
The predator of these plants, the gopher, stays away from the rocky areas, leaving the
flowers in this space safe

Aspen-meadow matrix
Gophers control aspen growth
Speculated that they ate the aspen roots, aspen roots have alkaloid
More likely they cut them to get them out of the way, or even follow the pika’s example
BIO120H:
Grizzly bears tear up glacier lily patches looking for corms to eat, but don’t get all
They also prevent the area from getting weeds, and break up some corms, spreading them

Natural selection is a very potential source for shaping ecosystems and organisms
Can’t produce perfect adaptation to produce perfection in environments
- environments are always changing

LECTURE 10:

Trophic ecology
Primary producer: plants that photosynthesise
Primary consumers: herbivores
Secondary consumers: carnivores who eat herbivores
Tertiary consumers: carnivores who eat secondary consumers
Detritivores: eat dead organic matter (detritus)

Different kinds of food webs: Functional web emphasises the influence of populations
on growth rates in other populations
Energy flow web: how much energy flux goes from one level to the next and where it
goes (trophic levels)
The only way to really see the connection strength between organisms in a web is
experimentation – interaction strength can be tested by removal experiments

Hairston, Smith and Slobodkin (1960): “trophic cascades”

• The world is green because the carnivores keep the number of herbivores down
• Example of an indirect effect; one trophic level exerts an influence on a second by
affecting a third group
• Cascades jump over a trophic level; they alternate, and can drastically affect small
communities

Will the lizards benefit plants, or not?

Lizards eat spiders and herbivores
Spiders eat herbivores
Herbivores eat plants
Can’t answer from topology of the food web alone (the diagram can’t tell you)

Lizards do benefit plants because of unequal interaction strength (shown through

experimentation)
The lizards eats the beetles more, and spiders left alive will eat the few remaining beetles
But this is kind of arbitrary, as it could have gone the other way

Direct and indirect effects can be opposed; indirect can be as strong as direct effects
Keystone consumers (whose presence or absence has a significant effect on the
community) can shift communities between alternative states
Outcomes are not fundamentally predictable, depends on interaction strengths

Special difficulties of herbivory

Easy to be a carnivore, animal tissues can easily convert into other animal tissues
BIO120H:
Plants are extremely different
- cellulose and lignin are tough indigestible materials by enzymes in herbivores
- microbe in herbivore guts ferment the material
- plant tissues heavily defended against them mechanically and chemically
- coevolutionary race (arms race?) between plants and insect herbivores is responsible for
much of biodiversity; specialisation is common
Milkweed defense: repellent latex in leaf veins
Monarch butterfly larva eats milkweed and will snip the midrib of the leaf to reduce
pressure before eating it
When they take in the poison, they put it to their cuticle, making them poisonous
(brightly coloured, aposematic)

- Plants taste bad, toxicity is very common (our crops are artificially selected for low
toxicity)
- They use many secondary chemicals (not important to growth or metabolism), alkaloids
especially potent and prominent
- They deter general herbivores, but there’s always a specialist insect that can eat them

Challenges for herbivores:

- Graminoids (grasses) defended mechanically (silica) rather than chemically (meristems
protected), wears down mouth parts of herbivores
- chemically defended forbs (broad-leafed herbs) dealt with by dilution

Horses, cattle, and elk live in Colorado; graze in high elevations and then go back south
for winter
Ruminants grind food, swallow, then vomit and regrind it again, increasing SA for
fermenting bacteria, have a rumen foregut, whereas horses have a long cecum hindgut
They also have very elaborate grinding surfaces on their teeth

Problem plants for ranchers

Very chemically poisonous, will poison cattle, or cause abortion in pregnant cows
Veratrum uses cyclopamine, which affects mammal development in babies
- causes Cyclops heads in sheep
Can disrupt development in cell pathways, promising for skin cancer research

Toxins are even more challenging for smaller animals

Pikas collect poisonous and bitter plants for winter
In summer they eat grasses and clovers, but don’t collect them for the winter
This is because by that time, the clovers would decompose
The poisons act as preservatives for the plants, and break down over winter months

Plants in the rainforest have such high biodiversity because they are constantly
bombarded by insect herbivory
The climate is very mild, doesn’t kill off bugs
Seedlings have low success rate near mother plant because of insects already on the plant
Strong density-dependence prevents any species from monpolizing habitats

Interactions of organisms to the physical environment produce wide range of

morphology, physiology, and behaviour
BIO120H:
But species interactions can produce unlimited biodiversity

12 Oct. 11

LECTURE 9:

Communities begin with pioneer organisms, starting with weeds, they change the soil
Larger plants move in and create more shade

Primary succession: new substrate created no preexisting vegetation (rare)

Secondary succession: preexisting vegetation undergoes a disturbance (common)

Longer the plant stays there, the better environment gets

Plants with seeds attract animals, eat them, poop and spread plants
- also poop contains nitrogen for nitrogen-poor soil
Boreal forests do not replace themselves, spruce-fir takes over as the canopy prevents
new saplings
Acidic soils usually can only sustain pine-oak, and their leaf litter makes the soil worse
Systems driven by seasonality
Cycling of dominant plants, A then B, etc.

When farmlands are abandoned, succession begins to happen – small plants > larger
plants

LECTURE 8: Metapopulations, plant community composition

Population persistence of a rare butterfly in habitat patches

- lives only in Willamette Valley in Oregon, settled in 1850s, great for agriculture
- 0.5% not converted to agriculture
- butterfly needs a rare plant in prairies, gone in agriculture, caterpillars die
- annual pulses of reproduction followed by heavy larval mortality
- dispersal and spatial patterning are important

Pika
- population around abandoned mining habitat in California
- mines break up rock and make tailings piles (rocks)
- great for pika habitat
- larger piles support pikas (more or less)
- southern population going down –warmer climate hard on pikas

So far seen deterministic model of populations – one outcome

Stochastic models – chaotic, multiple outcomes
Can calcutlate the expectations of a deterministic model
Stochastic is random – flip 100 coins, average fifty live, but each 100 is different

Pika in mine tailings: N site is steady, stable and a source for the other areas, middle is a
bridge between the two, and S is a “sink”, requiring constant flow from North to
replenish individuals (Rescue effect)
BIO120H:

Separately, the N is a source, it export pikas to the other two, and without it, the other two
would be screwed

Extinction can happen in many different ways:

- strong density dependence (chaos)
- unstable competition/ predator-prey (disease/host)
- Allee effects at low density (can’t find mates, no one to watch for predators)
Are countered by non-equilibrial conditions:
- habitat patchiness
- rescue by migration
- variation in life history strategies

Plant ecology in communities

What species regularly occur with one another
Species with significant associations: beech-maple, oak-hickory, etc.
Mostly descriptive: little experimentation
Why?
Organismal view: plant communities like “quasiorganisms” – organs are bound together
to make a functioning organism, similar concept (Clements)
Individualistic view: distribution is independent of each other; in fact there are
limitations that determine where the organism can live
- the plants have similar ranges of growth (Gleason)

Whittaker’ direct gradient approach to gathering data

- objectively tallied up organisms at various locations
- plotted them on gradients like altitude, soil type, etc.

5 Oct. 11
Jenna.richards@utoronto.ca
LECTURE 7:

Interactions between species that affect fitness

+/- Consumer resource interactions – one eats the other
-/- Competition for resources limits supply for both
+/+ Mutualism
Emphasis on population dynamics

Models for competition: Lotka-Volterra equations

Simple outgrowth of logistic equation that incorporates a second braking term to account
for diminishes resources
- Use dN1/dt = r1N1(Kt-N1/K1)
- Add a second braking term to show effect on Sp1 by Sp2
In the brackets –a12N1
- The more of Sp2 that exists, the less resources available for Sp1
- Then rewrite the same equation for Sp2, changing the subscripts

Possible outcomes of this model:

BIO120H:
Species stably coexist
Sp1 may always win (N1 = K1; N2 = 0)
Sp2 may always win (N2 = K2; N1 = 0)
Winner depends on starting # of either
Coexistence requires that BOTH SPECIES inhibit their own growth more than they
inhibit each other’s

LV outcomes are interpreted as unstable – coexistence is hard. Complete competitors

cannot coexist. May not be the case in nature.

In nature, competitors can migrate to places with more resources, .: competition rarely
goes to completion

Predator-prey models show that numbers are cyclical

- As predator eats prey, prey # goes down
- As prey # goes down, predator starves and their # goes down
- As predator # goes down, prey can reproduce well
- Repeat.

LECTURE 6:
Age structures show the ages of various populations in genders
Not all members of a population are equal – 3 year old and 60 year olds don’t have babies
Without age structure: n = 24
With: n0 = 9, n1 = 6, n2 = 6, n3 = 5, n4 = 4
The population diminishes as they age, factor of survivorship
Babies die, prereproductive infants die, reproducing women have babies – increasing
population, and old grannies can’t reproduce and die.

Life Tables:
Statistical expected for the average individuals for life events
Age of death, age/timing of reproduction, are treated as constants

L of x:
The probability of an organism being alive at age x
L0 = 1.0 (you’re alive at age 0, hurpadurpa)
Lx curve declines as x gets bigger
Types of survivorship curves:
Type II: probability of death is constant in your life, can die at any age (half-life)
Type I: probability is low at birth, and very high as age increases (senescence)
- people, large organisms
Type III: high at birth, low at maturity
- organisms that put out many “eggs”, only few survive
Humans: higher infant mortality, adolescent low mortality, senescence drop-off

Fecundity schedules:
bx shows fecundity, number of births for female between age x and age x+1
With most organism, there is a prereproductive stage – female accumulates resources to
enable reproduction
bx = 0 at birth, rises rapidly at maturity
BIO120H:

Population Growth Rates:

Average # of daughters a female reproduces in her life = net reproductive rate = R0
R0 = sigmaLxbx; bx would be total daughters produced if no moms died early; Lx
discounts reproduction by the probability that some mothers DO die early
R0 is like lambda, but in time units of one generation, instead of arbitrarily choosing
years, days, months, etc.

Generation Time (T):

Average age at which females give birth
ExLxbx/ELxbx = ExLxbx/R0

Relationship between R0 and lambda

Both indicate factor by which population changes during a discrete time interval but use
different intervals

Generally organisms with higher lambda, ratio of babies to survivorship, have higher
fitness
Natural selection favour many offspring early in life, so why aren’t all organisms mice?
And all plants annuals which produce a lot of seeds in their first year?

Constraints and trade-offs are why!

Reproduction is costly – a lot of energy and resources are needed for reproduction.
Longer prereproductive periods allow time to accumulate more resources
More energy put towards that can cause you to lose body weight

Fecundity schedules vary widely, and are often genetically determined

Iteroparous reproduce over whole life, repeated over its life
Semelparous “big-bang” reproduce at end of life, putting all their resources into
reproduction, causing them to die
Semelparous organism usually reproduce, or reach the age to reproduce, in synchrony
with other members of its own species

Pollinators are choosy foragers and will go to plants with greater display of flowers
- if the plants don’t wait to accumulate resources to flower, they won’t pollinate
them and will die in vain

Bamboo plants produce MASSIVE amounts of seeds, rats can’t eat them all, so many
survive

Reproductive value – vx = how many MORE offspring will a female produce for the rest
of her life
Why isn’t this higher at birth? Because some females die before their reproductive age,
so the expected number is lower for babies than in twenty somethings
.: Conservationists would choose to release animals at highest vx

Antagonistic pleiotropy, or the theory of senescence:

Pleiotropy – one gene may have more than one function
BIO120H:
Antagonistic “ – may have OPPOSITE effects at different age; is favoured by NS
- this is because early reproduction increases fitness
Accumulation of these genes causes senescence
Ex. p53 suppresses tumours in youth but kills stem cells later
Many genes will accumulate due to this – natural selection has given many failure genes

28 Sept. 11

LECTURE 5:

Population ecology: models without age structure

Aspen: One seed, many identical connected plants

Larkspur: Many unique seeds, many unique plants
Dandelion: No sex; many identical seeds produce identical unconnected plants

Coarse taxonomy of mathematical models:

Continuous vs. discrete generations (differential vs. difference equations)
• Growth in each
Growth dependent/independent on density
Models where all individuals are identical/age structure

Goals of most population models:

- predict the trajectory of growth through time (Nt) N = #; t = time
- how many individuals in population at given time? Nt
- time advances one step t -> t + 1
- Population growth times at t = 0, starting number is N(0)

Differential equations make time steps infinitesimally small – smooth (LIMITS,

FUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK)
- best suited for continuous growth
Difference for episodic growth – pulses of reproduction, mating cycles
Ricklefs calls them continuous time, and discrete-time
D = deaths; B = births; E = emigration; I = immigration
*** ALL DURING ONE TIME-STEP
Nt+1 = Nt - D+B - E+I (FOR DIFFERENCE)
Treat birth and death as per-capita rates (10 net growth out of 100 people = growth of
1/10 per person)
Changes by a constant factor for each time step – geometric growth

Continuous timeline: d(N)/d(R) = r N

Something limits growth – otherwise any species with positive growth (a lot of them)
would occupy EVERYWHERE.
• no species has every sustained positive lambda, and no species still alive has had
continuous negative growth

For equations, we have d(n)/d(t) = r(n)[(K-N)/K]

• First part means growth, second in brackets is limiting factor
BIO120H:
• K = carrying capacity – ability of habitat to sustain a number of individuals
indefinitely

Alternative forms of density-dependence: time-delayed logistics

Population growth responds to crowding and limited resources
In the braking term of the differential function, increasing delay (tau) causes increasing
overshoots and cycling
When populations are much slower to respond to changes, they violently overshoot
carrying capacity, and then drop far below it, possibly going extinct

Crowding is bad – density causes diseases, etc.

In these models, small population causes high per-capita growth, but this is not realistic
Allee effect – larger group creates more to warn for predators, finding mates
.: Therefore, modest crowding is good – Allee effect or +ve density dependence
In these conditions, populations usually fluctuate between K and a lower limit
If below, population can’t find mates, gets eaten, etc. then goes extinct

LECTURE 4:

Physical challenges for terrestrial plants, emphasis on trade-offs and alternative lifestyles:

Plant physiological ecology

• Stress is harder for plants – can’t move to evade stress
• Plants solve this by growth and development, not behaviour – carbon balance is
central
• Trade-offs in photosynthesis – needs light, temperature and water
• Extreme habit habit (desert), lifestyle (epiphytes), and sclerophylly ( resolving a
multi-part paradox

Carbon balance – constraints and trade-offs

• Autotrophs depend on net photosynthesis – PS-respiration
• Needs temp, osmotic balance, enzymes, dissolved nutrients in soil
• Any can limit fitness – anatomy and physiology reflect constraints

Photosynthetic structures (green parts) are usually leaves, but can be stems
• Leaf size and shape: SA to V very important, same with animals
• Good for getting CO2 and light (benefit)
• Bad for overheating (down enzyme function), water loss by evapotranspiration (cost)
• Plants keep cool via EVT – like sweating

But water not always available… it combats water loss by:

• Closing stomata
• Shuts off PS, gas exchange – plant stops growing
• Overheating & tissue damage

Keeping cool while conserving water

• Palo verde
• Unlike shrubs, its trunks are green and smooth
BIO120H:
• Can photosynthesise with its stems
• Vestigial leaves – called microphylly
• Mesquite – same deal, natural selection has reduced leave size
• Cacti – extreme microphylly – no leaves!
• Stems are the flat surfaces
• Called succulents – a lot of water-holding tissue inside the plant
• Has shallow, but extensive roots
• Usually roots extend out to foliage

Episodic patterns of H2O: Sonoran desert

• No water all year until Lemon Mountain melt, and HUGE CHANNELS form
• Saguaro cactus – 15m, 200 years, 5+ tones, can absorb 800L of water in one storm
• Accordian-pleating in cacti allows them to expand to take on more water

Animals can evade stress; what about plants?

• deciduous habitat near Costa Rica – trees drop leaves during dry or cold seasons

• Plants can reduce tissue damage this way

****** Why is the east side of Costa Rica a lush rainforest, and not the west? *******

Terminology:
• Groups of land plants – angiosperms and conifers (evergreen and conifer aren’t
synonymous)
• EVERGREEN trees do not drop leaves each year.
• Some conifers are not evergreens and some evergreens are not conifers

More useful definitions are done by the leaves:

• Mesophylls are very thin, high SA:V, lasts one season (maple leaves,)
• Sclerophylls are tough, low SA:V, last several seasons (pine cones)

Gas Exchange
• Laminar flow – smooth flow over smooth surfaces
• Still boundary layer at object surface, minimal exchange between object and surface
• Friction caused by object makes air move slowly, layers of slower moving air closer
to leave
• Bad for reducing heat
• Turbulent flow – eddies disrupt boundary layer, help cool leaf down
• Leaves like turbulence – have bumps, serrated edges, cut-outs called sinuses

Recursive Digression:
• the arctic hare presents a smooth silhouette to prevent heat loss

Nurse tree effect – palo verde shields saguaro seedling from the hot sun

Epiphytes: leaves that grow on a tree, no roots to put into soil, can’t survive very long
• create a cup shape with leaves that stores water (tank epiphytes)
• roots form ball mass that absorbs water (sponge epiphytes)
BIO120H:

21 Sept. 11
LECTURE 3:

Physical challenges of the environment for animals, trade-offs and alternatives:

Weasels are long and thin, live in a warm environment and are active, but why? They
live in ARCTIC!!!
- weasels are carnivores and hunt burrowing animals
- weasels dive into the burrows to hunt

Trade-offs:
- cost is being thin, can’t keep heat
- benefit is better hunting
- cost and benefit must be neutral or greater to make it worth doing
- selection builds on what is already there, existing developmental programs
- selection keeps moving forward towards a trait
- tinkering on a trait, yes; fresh design, no

Kangaroo rat takes in no water and conserves much of it

- bipedal, less heat gain
- efficient kidney to restore water and concentrate urine
- relies on metabolic water by breaking down fat

How else to survive stressful situations:

- enter dormant stage (pupae)
- nest
- hibernate, store fat
- migrate to cooler climate

LECTURE 2:

Species ranges and the physical challenges of the environment – heat balance:

1. Relationship between physiological and geographical ranges

Ranges of tolerance limit distribution

- organisms are complex chemical reactions
- enzymes function best at optimum temp
- homeostatic mechanisms have adapted to environment

Geographic ranges correspond to biome, limited by climate, vegetation

- behavioural habitat selection
- can be geographically large (over continents), but ecologically small (only grasslands,
etc.)
- the warblers example – the one wants to stay where it is
- some organisms are dependent on other organisms – type of tree for shelter, type of
prey
- gila woodpecker makes holes in saguaro for habitats for elf owls and cactus wren
BIO120H:

Some animals have ranges that transcend biomes

- larger animals don’t have to worry as much about temperature
- thanks to human influence, coyotes have extended
- killed off wolves, coyotes moved in; they aren’t afraid of people
- no competition, wolves killed coyotes

Thermal ecology:

Radiation – heat transferred electromagnetically

Conduction – direct contact with substrate (feet lose heat to ground)
Convection – heat transferred through moving fluid (air, water)
Evaporation – efficient cooling from wet surfaces
Redistribution – circulatory systems move heat among body parts to core

Size matters
- Surface area determines equilibrium rate – more area exposed to react
- determines how quickly the object takes on temp of environment
- Volume provides the inertia
- heat closer to the inside that needs to move out, farther away from coolant
- Homeotherms (organisms whose temperature stays roughly the same) are larger as you
move north, the warmer the climate, the smaller the animal – ex, the bears
EXCEPTIONS – elephant is HUGE – but has large surface area (ears)
- need huge body to digest woody diet

Shape matters
- appendages reduced in colder climates
- reduces surface area

- flat snake in tropics vs. pika in tundra (spherical to reduce surface area)
- the arctic hare is a huge ball (SO CUUUTE) vs. California hare (thin, huge ears)
* Insulation is also important – sheep have a LOT of fur
- aquatic animals have also no hair, it creates drag
Countercurrent circulation allows arteries to transfer heat to veins
- arteries are appressed to veins in appendages to conserve heat
- vein harvests heat from arteries

Evaporative cooling
- through sweating, panting
- lungs moist surfaces are more exposed to air when panting, water evaporates

14 Sept. 11

Website: www.portal.utoronto.ca

Required Texts: Lab Manual, Economy of Nature, Why Evolution is True

BIO120H:

* Reading Quizzes schedule in lab manual is wrong (p. ix); download from website*

Where to get help:

 How to do well in BIO120 presentation
 Lecture material: ask professors during office hours, Mon 5-6, or after the class
 Post question on discussion board
 Lecture TAs @ Tues 12-1 & Thurs 1-2

Thursday mornings, lecture audio will be available from the website

Bio120@utoronto.ca for questions, comments, and concerns

MAIN LECTURE 1:

Distribution of organisms is non-random

 patchy all around the world according to environment
 meadows vs. forests support different kinds of life
 continents have green with clouds and brown with no clouds
o the “patchiness” is universal across all sizes
 Carrizo Plains – patchiness in species of flowers

Abiotical (physical/chemical) factors: Resources and Conditions that support different

species
 Resources are exhaustible: nutrients, space, etc. Competition for them drives out
other species
 Conditions are not exhaustible: temperature, pH, salinity, etc. Things that are
available to fuel life
o Series of gradients – e.g. soil moisture, low – range of tolerance – high
o Range of tolerance is where the organism performs optimally
o Farther from optimum increases physiological stress; less reproduction,
survivability, etc.

What factors are most important?

Plants
Terrestrial: temperature (larger scale), soil moisture (smaller scale), nutrients (small),
disturbances (tiny) (fires, etc.)
Aquatic:

Animals
Terrestrial: food, water, temperature, habitat quality (cover, nesting sites), predation,
disease
Aquatic: salinity, osmotic pressure

*ANIMALS FOLLOW PLANTS IN FACTOR IMPORTANCE*

BIO120H:
Gradients at a global level:
Temperature, rainfall, seasonality
 Temperature is caused by latitude – variation throughout year
 Higher latitude colder, seasonality a major factor in temperature (summer-winter)
 Lower latitudes warmer, seasonality a major factor in rainfall (dry-wet season)
 Rainfall depends on atmosphere circulation, ocean currents

What causes atmosphere to move? (Differential Heating)

 Sun hits atmosphere at uneven angles
 @ Solar equator, Sun is most intense, @ poles same # of photons spread over
larger area, spread thinly, less heat
 Hadley cells make equatorial regions rainy
o Heated air rises, cools as it rises – loses heat, loses density
o Cools, vapour condenses and rains near equator
o Air warms as it falls
o Adiabatic lapse rate – 5-10ºC/km
o Cool, waterless air returns at around -/+30º latitude
o Places there are dry

Two other cells: Polar (dry) and Ferrell (wet).

Where the cells meet in called the intertropical convergence zone

 Causes line of thunderstorms at Solar equator
More land in the northern hemisphere
 Lowers moderating effect of water
 .: Temperature varies greatly
 Northern is more hot in summer, colder in winter
*Summer-winter heat cycle pushes the ITCZ around

East Asia has strong alternations of wet-dry seasons

 Causes onset of monsoonal rains

Earth spins on it’s axis

 Meaning the cells of warm-cold air move around
 Creates winds towards the east or west (prevailing winds) in certain latitudes
 Wind named for where it comes from (Westerlies from the west) (trade wind for
reliance of merchant sailors on these winds)
 ITCZ has very little wind – just goes up or down, ships suck with no wind
 Horse latitudes – get stuck here, run out of water – no rain
 Roaring forties have more wind than you can handle

Wandering Albatross:
3.5m wingspan, bionic glider, 22:1 glide ratio, 10 day foraging trips – 3,600km
If displaced against the wind, will fly around the world to get back home!

General trends of terrestrial vegetation:

 Growth increases with moisture and temperature
 We’re in temperate deciduous, perfect middle of plant productivity
BIO120H:
 Latitude determines 14 major terrestrial biomes
o Boreal forest biome crosses the continents at the same latitude

Additional climate patchiness overlaid on basic latitudinal belts

Temperature: land changes temperature more readily than water; continental climates are
extreme; maritime climate are moderate
Precipitation: Where atmosphere get laden with moisture; where does it condense?
 Evaporation from warm water bodies
 Air forced up mountain side it cooled as it rises – produces rain
o Windward side gets rain, leeward side gets none
 Leeward side gets rain shadows (low rain), and air warms as it descends
 West Rockies take up rain, east of Rockies dry

Warm water is a lighter density, and cold is more dense

 Water is affected by wind
 Surface motions can be greatly moved by prevailing winds
 Salinity has an effect too
o Some bodies of very cold as there is a force pushing up cold water
o Currents coming from a cold place make local bodies cold
 Where the cold water upwellings are is where the driest deserts are
o Doesn’t promote evaporation of water to rain down
 Prevailing winds are dry over the cold water for same reason
 The gulf stream is very important in Europe – pushed northward
o The Labrador current makes the maritimes colder than England, though
England is at a higher altitude
 Gulf stream run by salt and buoyancy characteristics
o Melting ice water in the arctic will increase fresh water and effect / shut
down stream

Biomes in elevation:
o Can go 1000s of km north and get same effect from climbing a mountain
o Happens because it’s colder up a mountain
o 100m in elevation = 150 km in latitude
o More rain exists here, too
o As you go up, hardier trees, deciduous, exist