Bush Encroachment – Pictures from Prof

Timm Hoffman
1955
1998
 Regional species pool to local species pool –
What determines the diversity of a community?

Communities are non - random subsets of the regional species pool

 Species and Species abundance -
interactions
• Interspecific interactions are among the basic processes that
influence species abundances and the community composition

• The interaction can be categorized by assigning positive or

negative signs to the net effect that a population of each species
has on the population size of the other

• However use caution - signs of net effects, can depend on the

responses used to classify interactions, such as population
growth rates, population size, or relative fitness
 Why are both negative?

Example of amensalism -
allelopathy

Morin 2011
 Apparent competition – 1 predator 2
prey
• Assume that neither prey species
competes with the other,

• More predators will persist when both

prey species are present than when
only one prey species is present.

• The net result will be that predation is

more intense on both prey when they
co - occur.

• This scenario, termed apparent

competition by Holt (1977) , results
when each prey has an indirect
negative effect on the other, caused by
its direct positive effect on the
abundance of a shared predator.
• https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/infamous-orca-
pair-behind-the-19-shark-carcasses-that-have-washed-
ashore-near-gansbaai-67e49cd5-0ea1-45ba-8a52-
3436badc7b77

• https://www.news24.com/fin24/climate_future/environ
ment/watch-rare-footage-of-orcas-hunting-great-white-
shark-in-sa-may-explain-disappearance-20221006

• https://www.capetownetc.com/news/killer-whales-
linked-to-shark-deaths-in-gansbaai/
 What determines
community composition?
• How species are distributed in
time and space?

• Physiological tolerance and

environmental conditions
• Salinity
• Moisture

• How well can you tolerate

stress?

• Biological interactions
between species
• Competition for space
• Competition for food
 Discovery of particular patterns
• The different ideas about
the causes of patterns play
an important role in the
development of theories of
community organization.
• Zonation - arrangement or
patterning of plant
communities or ecosystems

• Complex interaction
between competition,
predation, and
physiological tolerances

• Not all community

patterns are as readily
recognized and understood
(http://www.jochemnet.de/fiu/LittoralZonation.jpg)
 Environmental parameter
Helaouet and Beaugrand (2009) Ecosystems 12: 1235-1245
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225487034_Physiology_Ecological_Niches_and_Species_Distribution
 NICHE In one dimension

Performance or Abundance
Survival

Growth

Reproduction

Environmental Gradient e.g. Temperature

• Ecological niche – describes the relational position of a species or population

in an ecosystem

• How a population responds to the abundance of its resources and enemies?

• Behaviour unit
• Distribution unit

• Abiotic or physical environment is also part of the niche as it affects how

populations affect and are affected by resources and enemies
In two dimensions
Fate of egg-bearing Crangon
septemspinosa at a variety of
temperatures and salinities in aerated
water.

Haefner (1970): Physiological Zoology 43: 30-37

In three dimensions
 Odum (1959)
• Ecological niche as "the position or status of an organism
within its community and ecosystem, resulting from the
organism's structural adaptations, physiological responses,
and specific behaviour (inherited and/or learned)."
• “where it lives but also what it does."

• For Odum the habitat is the organism's "address," whereas

the niche is its "profession."

https://www.pathwayz.org/Tree/Plain/NICHE
 FUNDAMENTAL NICHE - ENTIRE SET OF CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH AN ANIMAL (POPULATION, SPECIES) CAN
SURVIVE AND REPRODUCE ITSELF.

Species A Species B

Environmental Condition or Resource Environmental Condition or Resource

REALISED NICHE - SET

OF CONDITIONS
ACTUALLY USED BY
GIVEN ANIMAL (POP,
SPECIES), AFTER Species B
INTERACTIONS WITH
OTHER SPECIES
(PREDATION AND
ESPECIALLY Species A
COMPETITION) HAVE
BEEN TAKEN INTO
ACCOUNT
Environmental Condition or
Resource

Inter-specific Interactions – competition, predation,

mutualisms
Hutchinson (1957a)
 Interspecific competition
• Is as a mutually negative ( − / − ) interaction between two or more
species within the same guild or trophic level

• Negative competitive interactions manifest themselves as

• reduced abundance,
• decreased fitness, or a
• decrease in some fitness component, such as
• body size,
• growth rate,
• fecundity, or survivorship

• Species often compete asymmetrically, in the sense that one species

exerts considerably stronger per capita effects than another.

• Studies of the impact of interspecific competition on community

structure take many forms.
• observational approaches,
• experimental approaches,
 Observational vs experimental
manipulation
• Observations can be made on a great variety of organisms,
except
• species that are experimentally intractable (hard to control) because
of long generation times (e.g., trees, whales) or
• high motility that complicates experimental manipulations of
competitors

• Experiments that directly assess responses to manipulations

of competitors have the advantage of providing strong
inference about whether competition is responsible for a
pattern.
• If a pattern (e.g., abundance, resource use) changes in response to
the addition or removal of competitors, the interpretation of ongoing
competition is clear.

Morin 2011
 New World Warblers (Vermivora spp)

Vermivora virginiae

Vermivora celata

Overlapping

Martin and Martin (2001) Ecology 82: 189-206

B B

A A
No. Fledglings

A = Both Species, B = without other species

WHY? – Access to preferred nesting sites

 What indicators imply Interspecific
competitors?
• Negative correlations between the abundances of ecologically similar
species.
• Can other mechanisms be ruled out?
• What else would determine abundance?

• Regular or non - random patterns of morphology

• Character displacement

• Negative competitive interactions manifest themselves as decreased

fitness, or a decrease in some fitness component, such as
• body size,
• growth rate,
• fecundity, or survivorship

• Resource use may differ by some fixed amount in order to avoid

competitive exclusion
 Character displacement
• Differences in morphology of ecologically similar species are greater in
sympatry than in allopatry

• Allopatry = only one species occurs (alo - alone)

• Sympatry = species both found in same place. (sym – same)

http://www.montana.edu/screel/teaching/bioe-370/documents/Biol%20303%20niches.pdf
 Competition can be categorised:
• Schoener (1983) suggested that six different mechanisms
are sufficient to account for most instances of interspecific
competition.
1. Exploitative competition – non - direct
1. consumption,
2. overgrowth,
3. pre – emption (not strictly non-direct)
2. Interference competition – direct
1. chemical interactions (allelopathy),
2. territoriality, and
3. encounter competition
 Freshwater Crayfish
• Interference competition for habitat
• Exploitative competition for food also common
• Competition for shelter is an important driver of species
exclusion in lake and stream habitats
• Experiments on crayfish that limited food or shelter resulted in
an increase in aggressive interactions
• Success was determined by
• Social dominance
• Size
• Sex
• Reproductive status
• Body condition
• Winners of competition were usually large males that had large,
undamaged chelae (pronunced key_lie) and were socially dominant
• Also compete with Benthic fish…in areas where the crayfish are
invasive, major changes to the benthic community are possible