Ecole d’Ete de Biologie

CIRM, 1-6 septembre 2008

Part 1

A brief introduction to
community ecology

© Dr. Regis Ferriere

ENS & IUF
[email protected]
http://www.eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/bios/ferriere.html http://ecologie.snv.jussieu.fr/eem/
Some key terms
 Gross, net primary production
 Food chains, webs
 Ecological communities
 Species that live and interact in an area.
 Species interactions
 Disturbances
 Species richness (diversity)
 Extinction
 Conservation biology
 Restoration, reconciliation
Basics of ecosystem biogeochemistry (1/3)

 Energy received from

the Sun is captured by
photosynthetic
organisms and flows
through all organisms.
 Atomic matter (carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen,
sulfur...) cycles around
the planet and through
living organisms.
Basics of ecosystem biogeochemistry (2/3)
 Only 5% of solar energy is captured by
photosynthesis.
 The rest is radiated back as heat or taken up by
water evaporation on Earth’s surface.
 The rate at which energy is assimilated by
photosynthetic organisms is called gross primary
productivity.
 The amount of energy so assimilated over (say) a
year is called gross primary production.
 Some is used for metabolism or lost through
excretion and death. The rest is used for growth and
reproduction: this is the net primary production,
potential food for herbivores.
Basics of ecosystem biogeochemistry (3/3)
 Photosynthetic organisms (autotrophs)
act as primary producers.
 Then energy flows through trophic
levels:
 Primary consumers (herbivores)
eat primary producers.
 Secundary consumers (carnivores)
eat primary consumers. And so on.
 Organisms that eat the waste
products or dead bodies of others are
decomposers (detritivores).
 The sequence of interactions “a plant
eaten by an herbivore, eaten by a
carnivore, etc.” is called a food chain.
 In nature, food chains are interconnected
and form food webs.
 Basic classification of species interactions
Predation (+/-)
Will the lynx eat the hare?
Competition (-/-)
Mussels, seaweed,
sea stars, and
barnacles compete
for space in the
intertidal zone.
Mutualism (+/+)
These ant and acacia
tree are help each other:
the ant gathers carrot-
like growths “beltian
bodies” from the tree.
This is food! In
exchange, the stinging Parasitism (+/-)
ant protects the tree from This wasp is laying eggs inside
many herbivores. aphids. The wasp’s larvae will exploit
the aphid’s body content.
 How can we describe the
structure of a community?
 By taxon
 “Bird community of the Gran Paradiso National Park”.
 By function
 “Community of prey for wolves”.
 “Community of plants pollinated by bumble bees”.
 Measuring diversity
 Species richness.
 Ecologists interested in how much it varies in space.
 Measuring abundances and ranges
 Species’ population size and distribution.
 Ecologists interested in how much they vary in time.
 How does competition
affect community structure?
 Competition occurs when two organisms use
the same resources and those resources are in
limited supply.
 Competition can be intraspecific or interspecific.
 Interference competition means that organisms’
activities to access resources interfere. Otherwise,
competition occurs by exploitation.
 Competitive exclusion occurs when two competing
species cannot survive competition: one wins and
takes over the habitat, the other disappears.
 Thus, competition may restrict the abundances
and ranges of species.
 How does predation
affect community structure?
 The size of the populations of predators and prey typically
undergo oscillations.
 Locally, predators can drive their prey to extinction.

Australasian birds “megapodes” lay their

eggs in nest mound and do not incubate.
Eggs will be destroyed by egg-eating
mammals. Thus, megapodes are restricted
to islands where the only mammalian
predators are marsupials (no egg-eating!).
 How does mutualism
affect community structure?
 Mutualism exist between plants & microorganisms, between
protists & fungi, among plants & insects, among animals,
among plants.
 The mutualism between plants and nitrogen-fixing bacteria
(Rhizobium) is the basis of much life as we know it!
 Mutualism sets the stage for parasitism...
(A) The bat feeds on the orchid’s
nectar. Pollen sticks to mouthparts
and is then spread to other orchid
flowers. (B) This orchid is
cheating! The odor, shape and
color mimic a bee mate! Pollen
sticks to the bee and will be
carried to other flowers. But the
bee gets no mating -- no reward,
wasted energy...
How do disturbances affect communities?
 Communities are constantly disturbed
 by their own members (a tree falling on shrubs and
grasses...),
 by natural, external agents (fires, storms, floods...),
 by human activities.
 Ecological succession is the sequence of
changes in community composition following a
disturbance.
 Even small disturbances can have dramatic effects
when they hit a keystone species or an
ecosystem engineer.
 Disturbance of a particular trophic level can cause
a trophic cascade of side effects.
 Keystone species? Ecosystem engineers?
 A keystone species is a species that affects the entire
community out of proportion to its own abundance.
 Ecosystem engineers are organisms that build structures
that create environments for other species.
Sea star Pisaster
ochraceus is a
keystone species. By
consuming mussels, it
creates open space,
taken over by many
other species.
Sea star removal Beavers are ecosystem engineers.
experiment: 28 species Preferentially cut down some tree species,
of animals and algae hence alter composition of vegetation.
disappeared within 5 Build dams: create meadows and ponds
years! that become habitats for other species.
 How does a trophic cascade work?
In Yellowstone,
wolves initiated a
trophic cascade.
Wolves prey on
elks. Without
wolves, elks
prevented
recruitment of
aspens, depleted
streamsides of
willows, driving
beavers to
extinction...
In Florida ponds, absence of fish
causes adult dragonflies to be more
abundant, which increases predation
on pollinating insects, which causes
plant populations to decline.
 Are disturbances
always bad for species
diversity?
 Intermediate Disturbance
Hypothesis: Communities
with intermediate levels of
disturbances often have more
species than communities
with very low or very high
levels of disturbances.
 Low disturbance levels:
favor a few superior
competitors.
 High disturbance levels:
favor good colonizers.
What other processes determine species
richness in mainland ecosystems?
 More species found at low latitudes than at high latitudes.
 Ecosystem productivity and species richness influence each
other.
 But mechanisms remain poorly understood...
How do humans affect species diversity?
 Indirectly, by affecting ecosystem productivity, and
directly, by accelerating the rates of extinction.
40,000 years ago, Is the ivory-billed woodpecker
Australia had 13 still alive? Not seen for 60
genera of years, it might persist in the
marsupials larger wetland forest of Arkansas.
than 50 kg. All Sophisticated camouflage
species had gone required for the track...
extinct by 18,000
years ago,
probably due to
overhunting.
How do humans affect species diversity?
 Indirectly, by affecting ecosystem productivity,
and directly, by accelerating the rates of
extinction.
 Conservation biology aims at understanding the
factors and mechanisms of species extinction, in
order to keep extinction rates as close to “natural”
as possible.
 What are the principles guiding conservation
biology?
 What are the major factors of extinction?
 How do they play out in ecological
communities?
 What are the principles of
conservation biology?
 Evolution is the process that unites all of
biology.
 To be effective in preserving biodiversity, we need
to know how evolutionary processes generate and
maintain that diversity.
 The ecological world is dynamic.
 There is no static ‘balance of nature’ that can serve
as a goal of conservation activities.
 Humans are part of ecosystems.
 Human activities and needs must be incorporated
into conservation goals and practices.
What are the major factors of extinction?
 Habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation.
 Most important threat worldwide!
 As habitats become more fragmented, more species are
lost from these habitats.
 Small habitat patches can support only small populations
and are adversely influenced by edge effects.
What are the major factors of extinction?
 Habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation.
 Overexploitation.
 Historically
the most important cause of extinction.
Continues today.
 Introduced predators, competitors, and pathogens.
 Species introduced to regions outside their original range
often become invasive, causing extinction of native
species by competing with them, eating them, or
transmitting diseases to them.
 Rapid climate change.
 Likely to become an increasingly important cause of
extinctions for those species that cannot adapt or shift
their ranges as rapidly as climate warms.
What can we do in practice?
 Establishing protected areas is crucial
to preserving biodiversity.
 Protected areas selected by taking
into account species richness,
endemism, imminence of extinction,
and the need to protect
representative ecosystems.
 What can we do in practice?
 Establishing protected areas is crucial to
preserving biodiversity.
 Restoration ecology is an important
conservation strategy because many degraded
ecosystems will not recover, or will do so only
very slowly, without human assistance.
 Reconciliation ecology argues that to be
successful, conservation biologists must
discover and use new ways to blend the rich
natural world with the world of economic activity.
 Suggested readings
Thompson, J. N. 1994. The Coevolutionary Process. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago. A thorough review of the processes by which
coevolutionary relationships evolve.
Wardle, D. A. 2002. Communities and Ecosystems. Linking the
Aboveground and Belowground Components. Princeton University
Press, Princeton. A comprehensive overview of the world's terrestrial
ecosystems that integrates aboveground and belowground structures and
processes.
Lawton, J. H. and R. M. May (Eds.) 1995. Extinction Rates. Oxford
University Press, London. Provides coverage of the quantitative and
qualitative methods of estimating extinction rates and their ecological and
evolutionary causes.
Rosenzweig, M. L. 2003. Win-Win Ecology. How the Earth's Species can
Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise. Oxford University Press,
London. Argues that to be successful, conservation biologists must
discover and use new ways to blend the rich natural world with the world of
economic activity.
Ferrière, R., Dieckmann, U. and Couvet, D. 2004. Evolutionary
Conservation Biology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. An
overview of the interplay of ecological and evolutionary processes, and the
role they play in shaping the future of biodiversity.