Population Ecology

A Population Ecology is an Ecology that focuses on the study of populations of organisms, particularly the factors affecting population density and growth.

• Context:
  • It can (typically) involve the analysis of factors such as birth rate, death rate, immigration, and emigration which influence population size and composition.
  • It can (often) be applied in conservation biology, specifically in the development of population viability analysis to predict the long-term survival of species in their habitats.
  • It can (often) intersect with other disciplines such as mathematics and statistics, especially in the field of population dynamics.
  • It can involve studying the interactions between populations and their environment, including how resources, predators, and competition affect population dynamics.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • The study of deer populations in a forested area, examining factors like food availability, predation levels, and human impacts on their habitat.
  • Research on fish populations in a lake, focusing on birth and death rates, immigration and emigration patterns, and the impact of fishing.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Community Ecology, which focuses on interactions among species within a community.
  • Ecosystem Ecology, which studies energy flow and material cycling within an ecosystem.
• See: Carrying Capacity, Demographic Transition, Metapopulation, Niches and Distribution, Reproductive Strategies, Survivorship Curves, Climax Community.

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References

2024

• (Wikipedia, 2024) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/population_ecology Retrieved:2024-1-14.
  • Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment, such as birth and death rates, and by immigration and emigration. The discipline is important in conservation biology, especially in the development of population viability analysis which makes it possible to predict the long-term probability of a species persisting in a given patch of habitat. Although population ecology is a subfield of biology, it provides interesting problems for mathematicians and statisticians who work in population dynamics.

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