NRE 2345 Exam 1

What 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

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