ORGANISMS AND POPULATIONS

CHAPTER 13

CLASS XII BIOLOGY

ORGANISM AND ITS ENVIRONMENT:

Major abiotic factors:

Temperature:

• Temperature decreases progressively from equator towards the pole and high altitudes to > 50 o C in
tropical deserts in summer.
• Thermal springs and deep-sea hydrothermal vents are unique with >100o C.
• Temperature affects the kinetics of enzymes, BMR and other physiological actions.
• Eurythermals: organism which can tolerate wide range of temperatures.
• Stenothermal: organism which can tolerate narrow range of temperatures.

Water:

• Water is also important factor that influence the life of organism.

• The productivity and distribution of plants is also depends on water.
• The salinity varies in aquatic environment:
o 5% in inland waters (fresh water)
o 30-35 in sea water
o More than 100percent in hyper saline lagoons.
• Euryhaline: organism which can tolerate wide range of salinity
• Stenohaline: organism which can tolerate narrow range of salinity.

Light:

• Plant produce food by photosynthesis, which only possible in presence of light. Hence it very
important for autotrophs.
• Plant species (herbs and shrubs) adapted for photosynthesize under canopy
• Sunlight is required for photoperiodic response like flowering.
• Animals use diurnal and seasonal variations in light intensity and photoperiod as cues for timing
their foraging, reproductive and migration.

Soil:

• Properties of soil vary according to the climate, the weathering process.

• Soil composition, grain size and aggregation determine the percolation and water holding capacity
of the soil.
• These characteristic along with pH, mineral composition and topography determine to a large
extent the vegetation in any area.
• The sediment-characteristic often determine the type of benthic animal in aquatic environment.
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Notes by KC Meena
Response to Abiotic Factors:

• Homeostasis; the process by which the organism maintain a constant internal environment in
respect to changing external environment.

How does organism cope with the changing environment?

Regulate:

• Some organisms are able to maintain homeostasis physiological (sometimes behavioral also) means
which ensures constant body temperature, constant osmotic concentration.
• All birds and mammals and few lower invertebrates are capable of such regulation i.e.
thermoregulation and osmoregulation.
• Success of mammals is due to thermoregulation.
• We maintain a constant body temperature of 37oC.
• When outside temperature is high we sweat profusely and evaporative cooling take place to bring
body temperature down.
• In winter due to low temperature outside our body temperature falls below 37 oC, we start to shiver,
to generate heat to raise body temperature.

Conform:

• Majority (99%) of animals and plants cannot maintain a constant internal environment; their body
temperature varies according to ambient temperature.
• In aquatic animals the osmotic concentration of body fluid varies with ambient water osmotic
concentration.
• All the above animals and plants are simply called as conformer.

Why the conformer not evolved to became regulators?

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 • Thermoregulation is energetically expensive for many animals.
• Small animal like shrews and humming birds cannot afford so much energy for thermoregulation.
• Heat loss or heat gain is a function of surface area.
• Small animals have larger surface area relative to their volume, they tend to lose body heat very fast
when it is cold outside; then has to expend much energy to generate body heat through metabolism.
• This is why very small animals are rarely found in Polar Regions.

Alternative response for stressful conditions is localized or remains for short duration.

Migrate:

• The organism moved away temporarily from the stressful habitat to a more hospitable area and return when
stressful condition is over.
• Bird migrate form the colder region to warmer region.

Suspend:

• Thick walled spores are formed in microbes to overcome unfavourable stressful external environment.
Spores germinate in favourable condition.
• In higher plants seeds and other vegetative reproductive structures are means to tide over the stress. They
reduce their metabolic activity and going into a state of ‘dormancy’.
• Hibernation: during winter animals like bears escape in time
• Aestivation: animals like snail and fish avoid summer related problem like heat and desiccation.
• Diapauses: many zooplanktons undergo a stage of suspended development in unfavourable conditions.

ADAPTATION:

• Adaptation: is any attribute of the organism (morphological, physiological, and behavioral) that enables
the organism to survive and reproduce in its habitat.

Adaptation of animal in desert:

• Kangaroo rat meets their water requirement from oxidation of fat.

• Excrete very concentrate urine to conserve water.

Adaptation of plant in desert (xerophytes)

• Thick cuticle on their leaf surfaces.

• Sunken stomata, both to reduce transpiration.
• Have special photosynthetic pathway (CAM), stomata closed during day time and remained open during
night.
• Opuntia has no leaf- they are reduced to spines.
• Photosynthesis takes place in flat green stems.

Adaptation of animal in cold climate:

• Allen’s Rule: mammals from colder climates generally have shorter ears and limbs to minimize heat loss.
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Notes by KC Meena
 • Seals of polar aquatic seas have a thick layer of fat called blubber below their skin that acts as insulator and
reduces loss of body heat.

Adaptation in high altitude:

• A person move to high altitude (>3,500 meter), develop altitude sickness.

• Symptoms developed are nausea, fatigue and heart palpitations.
• This is due to low atmospheric pressure of high altitudes; the body does not get enough oxygen.

How the bodies solve the problem?

• The body compensates low oxygen availability by increasing red blood cell production.
• The body compensates decreasing binding capacity of hemoglobin with oxygen by increasing rate of
breathing.

Behavioral adaptation:

• Desert lizards are conformer hence they cope with the stressful environment by behavioral
adaptations:
o They bask in the sun and absorb heat when their body temperature drops below the comfort zone in
winter.
o Move to shade when the ambient temperature starts increasing.
o Some species burrowing into the soil to hide and escape from the above-ground heat.

POPULATION:

Population attributes:

• Population: a group of individual living in a well defined geographical area, share or compete for similar
resources, potentially interbreed.
• Birth rate and death rate refers to per capita births and deaths respectively.
• Another attribute is sex ratio. The ratio between male female in a population.
• If the age distribution is plotted for a population the resulting structure is called age pyramid.

•
• The shape of the pyramids reflects the growth status of the population like growing, stable or declining.
• The population size is more technically called as population density.

Methods for measurement of population density:

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Notes by KC Meena
 • Counting the number
• Percent cover
• Biomass.
• Pug marks and fecal pellets for tiger census

Population growth:

• The size of the population changes depending on food availability, predation pressure and reduce weather.
• Population size fluctuated due to changes in four basic processes, two of which (Natality and immigration)
contribute an increase in population density and two (mortality and emigration) to a decrease.
• Natality: number of birth in given period in the population.
• Mortality: number of deaths in the population in a given period of time.
• Immigration: is the number of individuals of same species that have come into the habitat from elsewhere
during a given period of time.
• Emigration: number of individuals of the population who left the habitat and gone elsewhere during a
given time period.
• If ‘N’ is the population density at time ‘t’, then its density at time t + 1 is :

Where B = the number of births

I =the number of immigrants
D = the number of deaths
E = the number of Emigrants.
N = Population Density
r = Intrinsic rate of natural increase
t = Time period
K = Carrying capacity (The maximum population size that an environment can sustain)

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Notes by KC Meena
Exponential growth:

• The Exponential growth equation is Nt = N0ert

• Nt = Population density after time t
• N0 = Population density at time zero
• r = intrinsic rate of natural increase
• e = the base of natural logarithms (2.71828)

Exponential growth (‘J’ shape curve is obtained).

* When resources are not limiting the growth.
* Any species growth exponentially under unlimited resources conditions can reach enormous population
densities in a short time.
* Growth is not so realistic.

Logistic growth model

• Verhulst-Pearl Logistic Growth is described by the following equations

• dN/dt = rN (K–N / N)
• Where N = Population density at time t
• r = Intrinsic rate of natural increase
• K = Carrying capacity

Logistic Growth (Sigmoid curve is obtained)

• When responses are limiting the Growth.

• Resources for growth for most animal populations are finite and become limiting.
• The logistic growth model is a more realistic one.

POPULATION INTERACTIONS:

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Predation:

• Organism of higher trophic level (predator) feeds on organism of lower trophic level (prey) is called the
predation.
• Even the herbivores are not very different from predator.
• Predator acts as a passage for transfer of energy across trophic level.
• Predators keep prey populations under control.
• Exotic species have no natural predator hence they grow very rapidly. (prickly pear cactus introduced in
Australia created problem)
• Predators also help in maintaining species diversity in a community, by reducing the intensity of competition
among competing prey species. (Pisaster starfish field experiment)

Defense developed by prey against predators:

Animals:

• Insects and frogs are cryptically coloured (camouflaged) to avoid being detected by the predator.
• Some are poisonous and therefore avoided by the predators.
• Monarch butterfly is highly distasteful to its predator (bird) due to presence of special chemical it its
body. The chemical acquired by feeding a poisonous weed during caterpillar stage.

Plants:

• Thorns in Acacia, Cactus are morphological means of defense.

• Many plants produce and store some chemical which make the herbivore sick if eaten, inhibit feeding,
digestion disrupt reproduction, even kill the predators.
• Calotropis produces poisonous cardiac glycosides against herbivores.
• Nicotine, caffeine, quinine, strychnine, opium etc. are produced by plant actually as defenses against the
grazers and browsers.

Competition:

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Notes by KC Meena
 • Interspecific competition is a potent force in organic evolution.
• Competition generally occurs when closely related species compete for the same resources that are limiting,
but this not entirely true:
• Firstly: totally unrelated species could also compete for the same resources.
o American lakes visiting flamingoes and resident fishes have their common food, zooplanktons.
• Secondly: resources need not be limiting for competition to occur.
o Abingdon tortoise in Galapagos Islands became extinct within a decade after goats were
introduced on the island, due to greater browsing ability.
• Competitive release: A species, whose distribution is restricted to a small geographical area because of
the presence of a competitively superior species, is found to expand its distributional range dramatically
when the competing species is experimentally removed.
• Connell’s elegant field experiment showed that superior barnacle Balanus dominates the intertidal area
and excludes the smaller barnacle Chathamalus from that zone.
• Gause’s ‘competitive Exclusion Principle’: two closely related species competing for the same resources
cannot co-exist indefinitely and the competitively inferior will be eliminated eventually.
• Resource partitioning: If two species compete for the same resource, they could avoid competition by
choosing, for instance, different times for feeding or different foraging pattern.
• MacArthur showed five closely related species of warblers living on the same tree were able to avoid
competition and co-exist due to behavioral differences in their foraging activities.

Parasitism:

• Parasitic mode of life ensures free lodging and meals.

• Some parasites are host-specific (one parasite has a single host) in such a way that both host and parasite
tend to co-evolve.

Parasitic adaptation

• Loss of unnecessary sense organs.

• Presence of adhesive organs or suckers to cling on to the host.
• Loss of digestive system.
• High reproductive capacity
• Parasites having one or more intermediate host or vectors to facilitate parasitisation of its primary host.
• Liver fluke has two intermediate hosts (snail and a fish) to complete its live cycle.

Effects on the host:

• Parasite always harms the host.

• They reduce the survival, growth and reproduction of the host.
• Reduce its population density.
• They make the host more vulnerable to the predators, by making it physically weak.
• Ectoparasite: feeds on the external surface of the host.
o Lice on human
o Ticks on dog
o Marine fish infested with copepods
o Cuscutaa parasitic plant grow on hedge plants.
• Endoparasites: are those that live inside the host body at different sites.

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Notes by KC Meena
 o Life cycle is more complex.
o Morphological and anatomical features are greatly simplified.
o Highly developed reproductive system.
• Brood parasitism:
o Special type of parasitism found in birds.
o The parasitic birds lay its eggs in the nest of its host and let the host incubate them.
o The egg of the host is very similar with the egg of the host.
o Cuckoo lays eggs in the nest of the crow.

Commensalism: This is the interaction in which one species benefits and the other is neither benefited nor harmed.

• Orchids growing as an epiphyte on a mango branch.

• Clown fish living among tentacles of sea anemone.
• Barnacles on back of whales.
• Cattle Egret and grazing cattle.

Mutualism: interaction between two living organism, both are equally benefited, no one is harmed.

• Lichen: a mycobiont and a Phycobiont.

• Mycorrhiza: relationship between fungi and root of higher plant.
• Pollinating insects and flowering plants.
• Fig trees and its pollinating agent wasp.

Sexual deceit

• Mediterranean orchid Ophrys employs ‘sexual deceit’.

• Petal of the flower resembles the female bee.
• The male bee attracted to what it perceives as a female, ‘pseudocopulates’ with the flower but does not get
any benefits.

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Notes by KC Meena