Chapter 45

Community
Ecology

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45.1 Fighting Foreign Fire Ants
• Red fire ants (Solenopsis invicta)
– Native to South America
– Arrived in the Southeastern United States in the
1930s as stowaways on a cargo ship
– Established themselves across the south
– Accidentally transported to California and New
Mexico
– More recently established in the Caribbean,
Australia, New Zealand, and some Asian countries

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Fire Ant Pest Problem
• Increased dispersal rates among pest species
– Negative consequence of global trade
• Fire ants caused decline of native ant species
– Also contributed to decline of quail and vireos in
some areas
• S. invicta feeds on bird eggs
– Affected native plants and pollinators such as
ground-nesting bees

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45.2 What Factors Shape Community
Structure?
• Community
– All species that live in a particular region
– Can nest inside each other and coexist
• Examples: microbes in a gut; termites one of many species
on a fallen log
• Habitat
– Environment in which a species lives
• Components of species diversity
– Richness: the number of species
– Species evenness: relative abundance of each
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Characteristics of Community
• Array of species and their relative abundances
change over time
– Can change over a long time span or suddenly
• Abiotic (nonbiological) factors that affect
community structure
– Rainfall
– Sunlight intensity
– Temperature

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Species Interactions
• Species interactions shape community structure
• Commensalism
– One species benefits from the interaction and the
other is unaffected
• Symbiosis
– Two species with a prolonged close association that
benefits at least one of them

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45.3 Mutualism
• Interspecific interaction that benefits both
participants
– Example: flowering plants and their pollinators
• Photosynthetic organisms
– Often supply sugars to their nonphotosynthetic
partners
• Examples: plants luring pollinators with nectar, and plants
making sugary fruits that attract seed-dispersing animals

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Costs and Benefits of Mutualism
• Mutualism is best considered as a case of
reciprocal exploitation
• If taking part in mutualism has a cost,
– Selection will favor individuals who minimize that
cost
– Example: nectar production is energetically costly
for a flower
• Flowers who produce only as much nectar as necessary to
keep pollinators coming have a selective advantage

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45.4 Competitive Interactions
• Interspecific competition
– Usually not as intense as intraspecific competition
– Requirements of two different species will always
differ more than two members of the same species
• Ecological niche
– Type of resources and environmental interactions
required by an organism
• Example: temperature range, food, breeding area

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Forms of Competition
• Interference competition
– One species actively prevents another from accessing
some resource
• Example: one species of scavenger chasing another
species away from a carcass
• Exploitative competition
– Each species reduces the amount of resource
available to the other species by using the resource
• Example: the more acorns deer eat, the fewer remain for
blue jays

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Effects of Competition
• Competitive exclusion
– Described by G.F. Gause in the 1930s
– Whenever two species require the same resource to
live or reproduce
• The better competitor will drive the other to extinction in
that habitat
• When competing species do coexist
– The presence of each reduces the carrying capacity
of the other

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Competitive Exclusion in Paramecium

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 Competitive Exclusion in Paramecium

population density
population density

population density
P. caudatum alone P. aurelia alone Both species together

Relative
Relative

Relative

0 4 8 12 16 20 24 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
Time (days) Time (days) Time (days)

Stepped Art
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Resource Partitioning
• Evolutionary process
– Species adapt to use a shared limited resource in a
way that minimizes competition
– Example: eight species of woodpecker coexist in
Oregon forests
• All feed on insects and nest in hollow trees
• Details of foraging behavior and nesting preferences vary

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Character Displacement
• An effect of directional selection
• Range of variation for one or more traits is
shifted in a direction that lessens competition for
a limited resource

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Competing for Pollinators

Mimulus Lobelia
left, © Michigan Wildflowers by Charles Peirce, homepage.mac.com/chpeirce/wildflowers/index.html; right, © Eleanor Saulys

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 Body length

with P. hoffmani alone alone with P.

P. cinereu cinereus
s P. hoffmani

top, © Cengage Learning; bottom,

© R. Wayne Van Devender, Appalachian State University

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45.5 Predator-Prey Interactions
• Predation
– Interspecific interaction in which one species
captures, kills, and eats another
– Removes a prey individual from the population
• Different types of predators have different
functional responses to different prey densities
– Figure 45.9 on next slide shows the three types of
functional responses

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 Functional Responses of Predators to
Changes in Prey Density

Number of kills per day

Number of prey killed per

0.12
predator per unit time

II
III 0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Prey population density Caribou per squar e kilometer
A Three theoretical B Example of a type II response from one winter month in Alaska, during which
types of functional response curves. B. W. Dale and his coworkers observed wolf packs ( Canis lupus ) feeding on
caribou (Rangifer tarandus).

(A, B left) © Cengage Learning; (B) right, © W. Perry Conway/Corbis

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Cyclic Changes in Abundance
• Some predator and prey species undergo
coupled cyclic changes in abundance
– Prey abundance regulates predator numbers
– Predator abundance regulates prey numbers
– Example: Canadian lynx and snowshoe hare
• Krebs discovered this model not completely
accurate
– Snowshoe hare has multiple predators
– Food availability also affects hare density
– Cyclic changes a result of three-level interaction
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 Population Cycles in an Arctic Predator
and Its Main Prey
160

140

120
Number of pelts taken ( x 1,000)

100

80

60

40

20

0
1845 1865 1885 1905 1925
Time (years)

A Abundance of Canadian lynx (dashed line)

and snowshoe hares (solid line), based on the
numbers of pelts sold by trappers to Hudson’s
Bay Company during a ninety-year period.

B Canadian lynx pursuing a snowshoe hare.

© Cengage Learning 2016. All Rights Reserved. (A) © 2016 Cengage Learning; (B) Ed Cesar/Science Source.
45.6 Evolutionary Arms Races
• Predator and prey species exert selection
pressure on one another
– Example: mutation gives prey species a defensive
adaptation
• Favors predator adaptation to respond to improved defense
• Some prey have a conspicuous color pattern
predators learn to avoid
• Well-defended species who share the same type
of predator often look like each other

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 Examples of Mimicry

A Stinging B One of its edible C Another edible D And another edible

wasp. mimics. mimic. mimic.

(A–C) Edward S. Ross; (D) © Nigel Jones

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 Camouflage and Herbivory
• Camouflage
– Body shape, color pattern, or behavior that allows an
individual to blend into its surroundings
• Herbivory
– Animal feeds on plants
– Some plants have adapted to quickly recover from
loss
– Other plants have traits that deter herbivory
• Spines, thorns, or chemical compounds

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45.7 Parasites and Parasitoids
• Parasitism
– Parasite benefits by feeding on the host without
killing it immediately
– Parasitic bacteria, fungi, protists, invertebrates,
plants, and fish exist
– Can decrease the size of the host population
• By weakening the host
• Parasites have traits that allow them to locate
hosts and feed undetected

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Brood Parasites
• Brood parasitism
– One species benefits by another raising its offspring
– European cuckoos, North American cowbirds
– Not having to invest in parental care allows more
offspring
– Decreases the reproductive rate of the host species
– Favors adaptation of the host to recognize and reject
brood parasites

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Parasitoids
• Insects that lay their eggs in the bodies of other
insects
• Larvae develop in the host, devour its tissue, and
eventually kill it
• Raised as a type of biological pest control
• Ideal biological control agent characteristics
– Excels at finding the target host species
– Population growth rate comparable to the host
– Offspring disperse widely

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45.8 Ecological Succession
• Array of species in a community can change
over time
• Pioneer species
– First to arrive in new or newly vacated habitats
– Often mosses and lichens, or hardy annual flowering
plants with wind-dispersed seeds
• Primary succession
– Next species builds on the foundation laid by the
first species
– Later species eventually displace early ones
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Secondary Succession
• A disturbed area within a community recovers
– Occurs in abandoned agricultural fields and burned
forests
• Improved soil is present from the start
– Allows secondary succession to occur faster than
primary succession
• Species composition of a community changes
frequently and unpredictably
– Random events happen

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Secondary Succession at Mount Saint
Helens

A The 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption obliterated the community at the B The first pioneer species arrived less than a decade after the eruption.
base of this Cascade volcano.

(A) R. Barrick/USGS; (B) USGS;

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45.9 Species Introduction, Loss, and
Other Disturbances
• Keystone species
– Has a disproportionately large effect on a community
relative to its abundance
– Example: sea star, when removed from a rocky
intertidal community on the California coast
• Results in mussels taking over, reducing overall species
diversity
– Example: beavers create a deep pool when they build
a dam, affecting the types of species that can live in
that area

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Adapting to Disturbance
• After a disturbance, species that withstand or
benefit from the disturbance are at an advantage
– Some plants produce seeds that require fire to
germinate
– Other plants store resources in the roots, so they can
quickly recover after a fire
• Indicator species
– Especially sensitive to environmental changes
– Example: trout in a stream

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Species Introductions
• Arrival of a new species can cause dramatic
changes
– Exotic species: resident of an established community
that became resident elsewhere
• United States home to 4,500 exotic species
– 25 percent of the species in Florida and 45 percent in
Hawaii are exotic
• Examples: kudzu, gypsy moth, and nutria

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 Exotic Species Altering Natural
Communities

A Kudzu native to Asia is overgrowing trees B Gypsy moths native to Europe and Asia feed on C Nutrias from South America are now in the Gulf
across the southeastern United States. oaks through much of the United States. States and in the Pacific Northwest.

(A) Angelina Lax/Science Source; (B) Photo by Scott Bauer, USDA/ARS; (C) © Greg Lasley Nature Photography, www.greglasley.net.

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45.10 Biogeographic Patterns in
Community Structure
• Biogeography
– Study of how species are distributed in the natural
world
• Number of species greatest close to the equator
– Declines toward the poles
• Factors in diversity at tropical latitudes
– More sunlight and rainfall
– Communities have been established longer
– Species richness may be self-reinforcing

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Island Patterns
• New island formed by volcanos in 1960s off
Ireland’s coast
– Early colonists included bacteria and fungi
– Mosses and lichens followed
– Seagull colony and new vascular plants
• Equilibrium model of island biogeography
– Describes a balance between immigration rates of
new species and extinction rates of established
species
• Island’s size is a factor

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Island Biodiversity Patterns
islands less than
1,000
300 kilometers from source
500
Species richness (number of species)

100
50

islands more than 300

10 kilometers from source

5 10 50 100 0
50 1,00
0
,000 ,000 000 ,000 ,000 000
5 , 0 00,
10 50 100 50
1,0
Area (square kilometers)

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Points to Ponder
• What characteristics distinguish a pioneer
species?
• Are pioneer species good competitors against
later successional species?
• Why are pioneer species dependent on the
frequent advent of open, disturbed places?

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