Population ecology is a sub-field of
ecologyEcology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
that deals with the dynamics of
speciesIn biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
populationA population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
s and how these populations interact with the
environmentThe natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
. It is the study of how the
population sizeIn population genetics and population ecology, population size is the number of individual organisms in a population.The effective population size is defined as "the number of breeding individuals in an idealized population that would show the same amount of dispersion of allele frequencies under...
s of species living together in groups change over time and space.
The development of population ecology owes much to
demographyDemography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
and
actuarialAn actuary is a business professional who deals with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries provide expert assessments of financial security systems, with a focus on their complexity, their mathematics, and their mechanisms ....
life tableIn actuarial science, a life table is a table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before his or her next birthday...
s. Population ecology is important in
conservation biologyConservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...
, especially in the development of
population viability analysisPopulation viability analysis is a species-specific method of risk assessment frequently used in conservation biology.It is traditionally defined as the process that determines the probability that a population will go extinct within a given number of years.More recently, PVA has been described...
(PVA) which makes it possible to predict the long-term probability of a species persisting in a given habitat patch, such as a national park. Although population ecology is a subfield of
biologyBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, it provides interesting problems for
mathematiciansMathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and
statisticiansStatistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
who work in
population dynamicsPopulation dynamics is the branch of life sciences that studies short-term and long-term changes in the size and age composition of populations, and the biological and environmental processes influencing those changes...
.
Fundamentals
Terms used to describe natural groupings of individuals in ecological studies
| Term |
| Definition |
| Species population |
All individuals of a species. |
| Metapopulation |
A set of spatially disjunct populations, among which there is some immigration. |
| Population |
A group of conspecific individuals that is demographically, genetically, or spatially disjunct from other groups of individuals. |
| Aggregation |
A spatially clustered group of individuals. |
| Deme |
A group of individuals more genetically similar to each other than to other individuals, usually with some degree of spatial isolation as well. |
| Local population |
A group of individuals within an investigator-delimited area smaller than the geographic range of the species and often within a population (as defined above). A local population could be a disjunct population as well. |
| Subpopulation |
An arbitrary spatially-delimited subset of individuals from within a population (as defined above). |
One of the first laws of population ecology is the
Thomas MalthusThe Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent....
' exponential law of population growth...
A population will grow (or decline) exponentially as long as the environment experienced by all individuals in the population remains constant.
This principle in population ecology provides the basis for formulating predictive theories and tests that follow.
Simplified population models usually start with four key variables including death, birth, immigration, and emigration. Mathematical models used to calculate changes in population demographics and evolution hold the assumption (or
null hypothesisThe practice of science involves formulating and testing hypotheses, assertions that are capable of being proven false using a test of observed data. The null hypothesis typically corresponds to a general or default position...
) of no external influence. Models can be more mathematically complex where "...several competing hypotheses are simultaneously confronted with the data." For example, in a closed system where immigration and emigration does not take place, the per capita rates of change in a population can be described as:
-
where
N is the total number of individuals in the population,
B is the number of births,
D is the number of deaths,
b and
d are the per capita rates of birth and death respectively, and
r is the per capita rate of population change. This formula can be read as the rate of change in the population (
dN/dT) is equal to births minus deaths (B - D).
Using these techniques, Malthus' population principle of growth was later transformed into a mathematical model known as the logistic equation:
-
where
N is the biomass density,
a is the maximum per-capita rate of change, and
K is the
carrying capacityThe carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment...
of the population. The formula can be read as follows: the rate of change in the population (
dN/dT) is equal to growth (
aN) that is limited by carrying capacity
(1-N/K). From these basic mathematical principles the discipline of population ecology expands into a field of investigation that queries the
demographicsDemographics are the most recent statistical characteristics of a population. These types of data are used widely in sociology , public policy, and marketing. Commonly examined demographics include gender, race, age, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location...
of real populations and tests these results against the statistical models. The field of population ecology often uses data on life history and matrix algebra to develop projection matrices on fecundity and survivorship. This information is used for managing wildlife stocks and setting harvest quotas
r/K selection
An important concept in population ecology is the r/K selection theory. The first variable is
r (the intrinsic rate of natural increase in population size, density independent) and the second variable is
K (the carrying capacity of a population, density dependent).
An
r-selected species (e.g., many kinds of insects, such as aphids) is one that has high rates of fecundity, low levels of parental investment in the young, and high rates of mortality before individuals reach maturity. Evolution favors productivity in r-selected species. In contrast, a
K-selected species (such as humans) has low rates of fecundity, high levels of parental investment in the young, and low rates of mortality as individuals mature. Evolution in
K-selected species favors efficiency in the conversion of more resources into fewer offspring.
Metapopulation
Populations are also studied and conceptualized through the "
metapopulationA metapopulation consists of a group of spatially separated populations of the same species which interact at some level. The term metapopulation was coined by Richard Levins in 1970 to describe a model of population dynamics of insect pests in agricultural fields, but the idea has been most...
" concept. The metapopulation concept was introduced in 1969:
"as a population of populations which go extinct locally and recolonize."
Metapopulation ecology is a simplified model of the landscape into patches of varying levels of quality. Patches are either occupied or they are not. Migrants moving among the patches are structured into metapopulations either as sources or sinks. Source patches are productive sites that generate a seasonal supply of migrants to other patch locations. Sink patches are unproductive sites that only receive migrants. In metapopulation terminology there are emigrants (individuals that leave a patch) and immigrants (individuals that move into a patch). Metapopulation models examine patch dynamics over time to answer questions about spatial and demographic ecology. An important concept in metapopulation ecology is the rescue effect, where small patches of lower quality (i.e., sinks) are maintained by a seasonal influx of new immigrants. Metapopulation structure evolves from year to year, where some patches are sinks, such as dry years, and become sources when conditions are more favorable. Ecologists utilize a mixture of computer models and field studies to explain metapopulation structure.
History
The older term, autecology (from Greek: αὐτο,
auto, "self"; οίκος, oikos, "household"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge"), refers to roughly the same field of study as population ecology. It derives from the division of ecology into autecology—the study of individual species in relation to the environment—and synecology—the study of groups of organisms in relation to the environment—or community ecology. Odum (1959, p. 8) considered that synecology should be divided into population ecology, community ecology, and ecosystem ecology, defining autecology as essentially "species ecology." However, for some time biologists have recognized that the more significant level of organization of a species is a population, because at this level the species gene pool is most coherent. In fact, Odum regarded "autecology" as no longer a "present tendency" in ecology (i.e., an archaic term), although included "species ecology"—studies emphasizing
life historyA life cycle is a period involving all different generations of a species succeeding each other through means of reproduction, whether through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction...
and behavior as adaptations to the environment of individual organisms or species—as one of four subdivisions of ecology.
Journals
The first journal publication of the Society of Population Ecology, titled
Population Ecology (originally called
Researches on Population Ecology) was released in 1952.
Scientific articles on population ecology can also be found in the
Journal of Animal EcologyThe Journal of Animal Ecology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing research in all areas of animal ecology. It began publication in 1932, and as such is the second oldest journal of the British Ecological Society...
,
OikosOikos is an international scientific journal published monthly by the Nordic Society Oikos in the field of ecology. It was previously known as Acta Oecologica Scandinavica....
and other journals.
See also
- Density-dependent inhibition
- Irruptive growth
Irruptive growth, sometimes called Malthusian growth, is a growth pattern defined by population explosions and subsequent sharp population crashes, or diebacks...
- Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
- Overpopulation in companion animals
- Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
- Population distribution
- Population dynamics
Population dynamics is the branch of life sciences that studies short-term and long-term changes in the size and age composition of populations, and the biological and environmental processes influencing those changes...
- Population dynamics of fisheries
A fishery is an area with an associated fish or aquatic population which is harvested for its commercial or recreational value. Fisheries can be wild or farmed. Population dynamics describes the ways in which a given population grows and shrinks over time, as controlled by birth, death, and...
- Population genetics
Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...
- Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
- Theoretical ecology
Theoretical ecology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of ecological systems using theoretical methods such as simple conceptual models, mathematical models, computational simulations, and advanced data analysis...
- Important publications in autecology
External links