Studied by 2 peopleWhat makes something wild? (Definition of wildlife)
Animals which live in their natural state, uninhibited by humans
What exceptions are there within the bounds of wildness and domesticity? What settles these exceptions in terms of defining wildness or not"?
Animals like raccoons - wild in the sense that they are generally not managed/owned/interfered with by humans, but still dependent on us (eat trash)
Wild pigs - descendants of escaped domestics
Not an exception but animals of the same species in close proximity with one another can be very different in terms of wildness (catfish in Mississippi river but catfish in aquaculture ponds are not)
Wilderness is determined by legally, varying state-by-state but across the board often related to private property laws.
subcategories of wildlife
Game - hunted birds
Fur-bearers: foxes and such
Non-game: non-hunted birds
Fish
Jawed and jawless, freshwater and marine
Characteristics of fishery/wildlife systems?
Biota: What lives there
Habitat: the land and homes of biota (including abiotic components)
Human users: Fishers and hunters
Habitat Fragmentation
If a road is built in the middle of a habitat, the habitat not only loses the space taken by the road but a new buffer area is formed because the wildlife are not comfortable existing directly next to a road.
Categories of human users
Direct users: Fishers, hunters, and birdwatchers
Indirect users: loggers, fracking
Consumptive: people who take from/use wilderness (hunters, fishers, people gathering firewood)
Non-consumptive: people who “don’t take, appreciate (kayakers, birdwatchers)
Difference between fish and wildlife
Determinate vs indeterminate growth: mammals and birds grow to a certain size and then stop (determinate) and fish keep growing
Endothermic vs ectothermic: wildlife is endothermic (maintain constant temp) Fish are endothermic (temp dependent on environment)
Habitat differences: more oxygen in air than water, gravity greater in air than water, water denser than air (fish use more energy)
We value things we identify with, in general people care more about wildlife wellbeing than fish because it’s easier to identify with a bird or bear than fish
Ecology
Study of organisms, their distribution and abundance, determined by interactions
Levels of organization
Structure: water, plants, animals
Function: (respective) habitat, cleaning water, etc
Problems of scale (in studying ecology)
Spatial: The world is huge if you want to study the ecology of some place, it has to be a very small portion of land
Temporal: Things change - you can study the same area twice and get completely different results based on when you studied it
Methods of regulation
Predation and diseases - basically natural population control
Responses to stress
Stressor = lack of resources, habitat destruction, disease, predators “An applied stimulus, measured by its capactity to deflect some living component of an ecosystem”
Response = migration, ex: grizzly bears smell human sent, they leave and stop going there.
Levels of existence
Individual: single organism
Population: group of individual
Species: groups of interbreeding natural populations
Exceptions to species
Domestic animals: more susceptible to selective breeding
Interbreeding between species: think zedonks and ligers - blurs the lines of species
more about populations
Individuals who:
-rely on the same resouces
-are influenced by the same enviroment
-act as a unit
Density
Number of individuals per unit area
Dispersion
Distribution of plants or animals
-uniform: graphically
-random: self explanatory
-clumped: also self-explanatory
Demography
generation time -when does sexual maturity occur within a given species, how many eggs per couple, incubation period, care time, lifespan potential offspring
Biotic Structure
Feeding relationship: food chain
Biomass pyramid: shows the relationship between biomass and trophic levels (trophic levels being producers then herbivore then carnivore…)
The further something is to the bottom of the food chain the more biomass is present because there are more things eating them
habitat
Supplies needs for a population - water, food space, cover
Sources of water in habitats
Freshwater rivers and lakes, dew(small animals that don’t require a lot of water)
Problems of scale for animals within ecology
spatial : home range and territoriality
temporal: migration
Home range
-smaller animals, small range
-expansion of home range borne of exploratory trips
-size of home range by trophic level (large to small) carnivores,omnivores, herbivores
-marine animals generally have a larger home range than terrestrials (blue whale largest)
Optimal range of survival and growth for each organism
law of tolerance
Range of tolerance
Minimum to maximum where growth can occur, mostly revolved around temperature. in center (optimal range): survive, grow, reproduce / in stress zone : survive and grow / in outermost limit of stress zone: survive
Animals survive, but don’t thrive
stress zone
Response (at individual and population level)
Behavioral: instantaneous and reversible (moving to shade in he heat)
Physiological: takes anywhere from seconds to weeks, occurs within your body, not consciously controllable
Morphological: takes years to lifetimes, changes to an individual (smaller body developed in tadpoles with faced with predators)
Adaptive: takes several generations, evoltution
Ecological succession
The process by which ecosystems evolve and change, more complex as time goes on - stops changed when self-sustainability is reached in a climax community (disterbances to climax community, such as wildfires, cause predictable chagne
-primary: succession beginning in completely new habitats
-secondary: succession beginning after destruction of pre-existing habitat
*all levels have soil
Aquatic succession: bodies of water that develop layers of sediment
Natality and Recruitment
Natality: Number of young born/hatched within a period of time (birthrate)
Recruitment: number of young that survive to maturity within a period of time (survival rate kinda)
when to focus on natality/recruitment
Natality: when animals have few offspring and hence more involved parental care - all babies are more likely to survive and hence this is likely to be an accurate way to represent population(generally terrestrial wildlife)
Recruitment: when animals have many offspring and very little parental care (fish lay millions of eggs) - most babies born/eggs laid will not survive, so focusing on birth rate (natality) rather than survival rate (recruitment) will not be an accurate representation of population
Population dynamics
Study of change in numbers or weight of organism in a population, and the study of what affects these things
Factor affecting natality and recruitment
Density dependent factors: fighting over natural resources - (this will affect offspring rate) (dependent on density because the amount of organisms present vs natural resource available is what prompts fight)
inversity - more adults, less fawns and vice versa stock-recruitment relationship
density independent factors: acts of god
Density dependent factors
Environmental factors that affect population that are based on population density
Density independent factors
environmental factors that affect population that are not based on population density
Fishery version of population
Stock
Stock Recruitment relationship
lots of grown fish to reproduce = lots of recruited fish created
Determinate growth
Set size that the animals will grow to
birds and mammals
growth is fast to adult size
Indeterminate growth
-not set size that the animal will grow to
-fish
-growth patterns variable and affected by enviroment
-related to stunted population of fish - there’s lots of competition for food/natural resources which means low biomass in the population and general stunted growth because every fish gets less food
Mortality
Number of individuals that die within a specific period of time
Factors affecting mortality
Density dependent: lots of animals in a population = competition for natural resources
Dependent independent: abnormally cold weather (acts of god)
Natural Mortality
Death by natural causes (predation, lack of food, disease) - also included in this are some human causes like habitat destruction/reduction
Connected to growth rate and longevity, as well as growing season for fish
Varies from area to area - same size fish in different areas: one can be 3y/o with 40% mortality and one can be 15y/o with 10% mortality
Harvest Mortality
Humans directly taking animals from their habitat and killing them (hunting, fishing and trapping)
Total Mortality
Natural Mortality + Harvest Mortality
Harvestable Surplus
Individuals that can be removed from the population without affecting the population
Compensatory Mortality
When one type of mortality increases and the other decreases so they balance each other out
Additive mortality
When compensatory mortality goes to far and too many die - wildlife management seeks to avid this (sometimes it’s the goal with overpopulated species)
Overall population dynamics relationships between natality/recruitment, growth, and mortality
Nat/Rec + growth = mortality - this is a stable population
Nat/rec +growth > mortality - growing population
Nat/rec+ growth <mortality - shrinking population
Growth of population when environmental factors are not limiting
Graph of biomass vs time = exponential j-curve
Growth of population when enviromental factos are limiting
Graph of biomass vs time = logistic s-curve
-top of curve = carrying capacity (k)
-almost always (not exactly literally tthough -this is just a general description, populations are actually obviously very dynamic)
Carrying capacity
-K
-dependent on habitat available, predatory/prey standing
types of K
Ecological K: maximum number of organisms able to be sustained within a given area
Minimum K: desirable level for people/convience
standing stock/population density
-Used interchangeably
-What the S-curve levels out at
-bioic/reproductive potential lifts SS/PD up
-Environmental factors (disease, predation, etc) Push SS/PD down
Cyclic population
abundance increases and decreases regularly - generally determined by seasons and such
Irruptive population
abundance increases and decreases irregularly - unpredictable and graph is ll over the place
production/yeild
production: biomass produced/accumulated by a population in a given period of time (kg/yr)
Yield: portion of population taken by humans (can be less or more than surplus)
maximum sustained yeild
old management philosophy made to maximize amount of biomass humans could take. Does not take into account organism size
optimum sustained yield
actually considers ecological factors (biomass/general population dynamics) as well as sociological factors
population structure
size structure - how many in the population are large/small?
Age structure - distribution of adults vs babies
sex ratio
Community structure
-Composition of lots of species and organism
-species richness: how many different species in a given area
-species evenness: distribution/abundance of species present
predator/prey population relationship
more predator, less prey and vice versa
most vertebrates are
diploid
traits
controlled by genes, but affected by environment
heterozygosity
Proportion of individuals in a population that are heterozygous. Also described as genetic diversity because hH = more alleles
Genetics in regards to fisheries and wildlife
Help understand heredity (often specific traits) and heredity transmission
Genetic diversity
Perpetuated by high heterozygosity. Necessary for species evolution
Genome
Total genes in an individual evolves based on environmental factors on previous generations
How does genetic differentiation occur?
Adaptation: Deterministic, force being applied - there’s a reason and a direction
Genetic drift: Stochastic/dispersion, kinda like unintentional evolution
Standing genetic variation
Amount of genetic diversity currently in a population
Allopatric speciation
When species become different because of geographic isolation
Peripatric speciation
Similar to allopatric but only a small portion of the population gets separated
-few isolated individuals carry rare alleles, which then become dominant within those individuals
-due to genetic drift
parapatric speciation
speciation along a gradient- individuals at either end are very different and cannot interbreed; individuals in the middle/next to each other can kinda breed
sympatric speciation
different and noninterbreedable speciation occurs intermingled with he whole population
isolation by time
Causes speciation because of different breeding times
Artificial selection
Humans do this - breed animals for desired traits or breed out undeseriable traits
inbreeding
breeding with relatives - destroys genetic diversity
more likely with small populations because choices are less,
Large populations don’t have to worry about this as much
why is nourishment needed
to perform bodily processes
-use of energy and storing fat
maintenance ration must be maintained
how do wildlife obtain proper nutrients
carnivores - other animals
herbivores - plants
-all dependent of sex age and physiological status
What nutrients are needed
water, protein, carbs, fat, vitamins, and minerals
Metabolism
all chemical/physical processes that occur in the body
anabolism
metabolism that builds issue
Catabolism
metabolism that breaks down material
water
-Animals intake to stay alive
-must abundant compoind in the wold
-basis for all animal fluids
-digestion
-move feed
-maintain temp
20% loss = death
3lbs water for every 1 cup of food
Protein
-Largest most costly part of food requirement
c-composed of amino acids
-some animals need more than others
sources: meat, plants (peanuts, soybeans, cottonseed)
Carbs
-Main source of energy
-includes sugars and starches and cellulose
-Almost all from plants
Parts: Bran (fiber), endosperm (starch/protein), germ (seed for new plant)
Fats
-organic compounds, lipids
-found in plants and animals (sources grains with oils)
-Essential fatty acids - necessary for hormone production
Minerals
-inorganic
-provide structural support for animals (bones/eggshells)
-Help with muscle contraction, blood cells, organs and enzymes
-mineral blocks good for animal source of minerals
Vitamins
-Micronutrients
-Fight stress and disease
-Essential for body processes: health, growth, production, reproduction
Types of feeding
Generalist: opportunist, different foods by season
Specialist: same food year-round
Digestion in different types of feeders
Insectivores: short intestine, no cecum; simple system
Carnivores: short intestine, small cecum, sharp teeth
Non-ruminant herbivores: simple stomach, large cecum
Ruminant: 4 chamber stomach, large rumen, long small and large intestine, fermentation
Adaptation: coprohagy (shit eaters rabbits), Crop/gizzard (chickens)
Animal behavior
What animals do and why/how they do it
Ethology pioneers
Karl von Frisch: focus on importance of chemical and visual communication for insects
Niko Timbergen: focused on importance of instinctual behavior to survive
K. Lorenz: imprinting
Proximate vs ultimate causes
Proximate: immediate stimulus and mechanism for behavior (what caused squirrel to run away? it saw a dog.
Ultimate: Questions evolutionary significance of a behavior (why evolutionary do squirrels run from dogs? they’re prey)
Ethology
Study of animal behavior within their natural environment
Stereotypical Behavior
Instinctual behavior, something that’s built into genes and is done by all individuals
Fixed action pattern
innate, unlearned behvior that cannot be changed
circadian rhythm
daily cycle, affected by light
also includes seasons - length of day tells birds when to migrate
Control of behavior
influenced by genes and environment
behavioral phenotypes
innate behavior fixed under genetic influence - doesn’t need to bepracticed
Learned behavior self-explanatory
Habituation
loss of response to stimuli
Imprinting
Learned and innate
generally irreversible, done durring sensitive peroid - limiting phase at beginning of life - basically first few minuted
imprinting ona habitat can take 6mo
Note
Flashcard