Ecology B/C

[sewforlife]

Survivorship curves model the lifespan of populations against time. There are 3 types, type 1 is populations whose death rate stays low, then rapidly increases as they get older. Examples would be humans and elephants. Type 2, which may be the oddest, has a constant death rate throughout their lifespan, the only example I really know is squirrels. Type 3 is organisms who have a very high death rate right before birth and once they survive that the death rate slowly decreases. That is probably the most common, and a lot of fish and other organisms that lay a lot of eggs are type 3.

thanks so much.
would pandas go under type III?

[gneissisnice]

Survivorship curves model the lifespan of populations against time. There are 3 types, type 1 is populations whose death rate stays low, then rapidly increases as they get older. Examples would be humans and elephants. Type 2, which may be the oddest, has a constant death rate throughout their lifespan, the only example I really know is squirrels. Type 3 is organisms who have a very high death rate right before birth and once they survive that the death rate slowly decreases. That is probably the most common, and a lot of fish and other organisms that lay a lot of eggs are type 3.

thanks so much.
would pandas go under type III?

I think you misunderstand. Pandas would be Type I.

Type III animals give birth to a lot of animals at once. Not 3 or 4; more like 4000. Type 3 animals are more like insects and fish, whereas most large mammals are type I.

[sewforlife]

oops. sorry, I thought it meant that when the animal is young, they are easily able to die.

[gneissisnice]

oops. sorry, I thought it meant that when the animal is young, they are easily able to die.

Well, it does, but it just depends on what you mean by "easy". A Type III animal will produce a ton of offspring because it's basically guaranteed that only a fraction are going to survive until adulthood.

[sewforlife]

Regionals were today!
4th place in Ecology! I'm so incredibly happy!
they put deserts on the test
and when another team (CMS <- if you know who that is) turned their test in they asked the judges why there were deserts and explained how each year one biome rotates out and another rotates in... lol.

[paleonaps]

I am kind of new to this event, so does anyone have any pointers on what to learn? I did the event two years ago, and on 45 minutes of studying I got tenth place in regional. I just don't know some of the math involved, I am pretty good otherwise.

[disease_gurl_321]

hi! im new to this event, so i was wondering for tests what are the questions usually like. like are the dominant types of questions on the tests?

[Paradox21]

For you newbies, I would say the most common question I have had on a test is the extremely basic multiple choice, "Ecology is", then it gives 3 or 4 close definitions, and the 4th or 5th choice is the dictionary answer. Easy points. Beyond that, the event is VERY broad. I would suggest grabbing an AP Biology book and reading all of the sections on Ecology. I have been tested on everything from the 10% rule to extinction vortexes. The AP book should accommodate essentially all of your needs for ecological principles. After that there are the frustrating questions on biomes. For those you will find any general biology textbook to be sorely lacking. Often times they only have 1 or 2 pages on every biome. I resort to the internet primarily and any library I can find with books that specialize on a particular biome or even a particular aspect of a particular biome. The last kind of questions, which always seem like the wildcard questions, are conservation questions. Understanding how global warming occurs, human actions that are harming the environment, I even had a question at last year’s national competition that asked about the Clean Air Act. If you can learn all of that you should be very well off.

[disease_gurl_321]

thanks! that helped a lot!

[sewforlife]

I would suggest using the scioly wiki, cuz the person who made it... cough gyourko spent time! cough