2.

BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY OF WILDLIFE

2.1. Species Interactions Within Ecology
2.1.1. Inter-specific interaction
2.1.2.Intra-specific interaction
2.2. The Competitive Exclusion Principle
2.3 Symbiotic Relationships of Wildlife
2.4 The Theory of Natural Selection
2.5 Trophic Relationship of Wildlife Community In Ecosystem
2.5.1 energy flow
2.5.2 nutrient cycle
2.6 Migration Behavior
2.7 Communication and Signaling Behavior
 2.1. Species Interactions Within Ecology
• Species interactions form the basis for many ecosystem
properties and processes such as nutrient cycling and
food webs.
• The nature of these interactions can vary depending on
the evolutionary context and environmental conditions in
which they occur.

• Ecological interactions can be defined as either intra-specific or

inter-specific.
2.1.1. Inter-specific interaction
Niche and Organism
• In nature, many species occupy the same habitat but they perform
different functions.
• The functional characteristics of a species in its habitat is referred to as
niche.
• A niche is unique for a species while many species may share the same
habitat.
• The term niche means the sum of all the activities and relationships of a
species by which it uses the resources in its habitat for its survival and
reproduction.
• Niche is a full range of conditions in which organism lives (biotic and
abiotic).It is like your occupation.
• While habitat of a species is like its ‗address‘ (i.e. where it lives),
niche can be thought of as its ―profession (i.e. activities and
responses specific to the species).
• No two species in a habitat can have the same niche.
• This is because; if two species occupy the same niche they
will compete with one another until one is displaced.
• For example different species of insects may be pests of the same
plant but they can co-exist as they feed on different parts of the same
plant that is because their niches are different.
Interspecific Competition and the Niche
• Fundamental niche (theoretical niche)- the entire niche an organism could
fill if there were no other interacting factors (such as competition or
predation).
• Realized niche - The subset of the fundamental niche used by a species in the
presence of species interactions such as competition.
• The actual niche the organism is able to occupy in the presence of
competition.
2.1.2.Intra-specific interaction
2.2. The Competitive Exclusion Principle
• This principle states that if two species are competing for a
resource, the species that uses the resource more efficiently
will eventually eliminate the other locally.
• No two species with the same niche can coexist.
• Character displacement - genetically-determined changes in the
niche of a species resulting from interspecific competition.
2.3 Symbiotic Relationships of Wildlife
Interactions among living organisms are grouped into two major groups viz.,
• Positive interactions
• Negative interactions
 I. Positive interactions
• Here the populations help one another, the interaction being either one way or
reciprocal.
These include (i) Commensalism, (ii) mutualism and (iii) Proto co-operation.

1. Commensalism
• An interspecific interaction where one species benefits while the other
is unaffected.
The tentacle of anemones would
quickly paralyze other fishes that
touched them

The fishes feed on the detritus

left from the meal of the host
anemone, remaining uninjured.
2. Mutualism
• Mutually beneficial interspecific interactions are more common
among organisms.
• Here both the species derive benefit. In such association there occurs
a close and often permanent and obligatory contact more or less
essential for survival of each.
Eg.
• (i) Pollination by animals. Bees, moths, butterflies etc. derive food from
nectar, or other plant product and in turn bring about pollination.
• (ii) Symbiotic nitrogen fixation: Legume - Rhizobium symbiosis. Bacteria
obtain food from legume and in turn fix gaseous nitrogen, making it available
to plant
3. Proto-cooperation
• It is also called as non-obligatory mutualism.
• It is an association of mutual benefit to the two species but without the
co-operation being obligatory for their existence or for their
performance of reactions.

Fig. The bird feeds on the ectoparasites in the crocodiles mouth.

II. Negative interactions
• Member of one population may eat members of the other
population, compete for foods, excrete harmful wastes or otherwise
interfere with the other population.
• It includes (i) Competition, (ii) Predation, (iii) Parasitism and (iv)
antibiosis.

Competition
• Competition: two or more organisms of same or different species
compete to use the same limited resources or basic needs.
Predation
• A predator is free living which catches and kills another species for
food.
• Most of the predatory organisms are animals but there are some
plants (carnivorous) also, especially fungi, which feed upon other
animals.
Parasitism
• A parasite is the organism living on or in the body of another organisms
and deriving its food more or less permanently from its tissues.
• A typical parasite lives in its host without killing it, whereas the
predator kills its upon which it feeds.
Amensalism
• is an ecological interaction between two species, but in this
association among organisms of two different species, one is
destroyed or inhibited, and the other remains unaffected

• Eg. When cattle trample on grass, the grass is crushed. However, the
cattle do not benefit from this action nor is harmed in the process.
• Antibiosis : Organisms interaction chemically.
Eg. Some plants produce chemicals which makes them unpalatable
to herbivores animals.
2.4 The Theory of Natural Selection

• Evolution – includes all of the changes in the characteristics and

diversity of life that occur throughout time.
• The concept of evolution, that organisms may change over time, was
not new in Darwin’s time.
• However, it was not a widely accepted concept because no one understood
how it could work.
• A mechanism was missing.
• Darwin’s theory of evolution set in 1859. Darwin articulated the
complete theory when he published his famous book: On the Origin
of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in England.
 Natural Selection
• Darwin provided that mechanism with his theory of Natural Selection.
• Natural selection is a nonrandom reproduction of varying organisms in a
population that causes the survival of those best adapted to their
environment and elimination of those less well adapted, leads to
evolutionary change if the variation is heritable, accumulating the most
favoured traits in the population and discarding less favoured ones.
• Darwin’s theory rests on three propositions:
• Variation among organisms (within populations); the variation is at least partly
heritable to the offspring tend to resemble their parents; organisms with
different variant forms are expected to leave different number of offspring to
future generation.
 Variation
• In any population of organisms there is natural
variation.
• Some of these variations will allow the organisms
possessing them to survive and reproduce better than
those without these particular traits.

• The successful traits will spread through the

population.
• This change in the frequency of alleles in the
population is evolution.
• Some of the variation between individuals in the population is
heritable.
• It can be passed down from one generation to the next.
• Some of the traits found in the population enhance the
survival and reproduction of the organisms possessing them.
• The favored traits will spread through the population.
• Over many generations, the species will become adapted to its
environment.
• Over time, these changes can lead to the formation of a new
species.
• Darwin observed that organisms have the potential for very high
fertility.
• Organisms have the potential to produce, and often do produce large numbers
of offspring.
• Population size would quickly become unmanageable if all of the offspring
survived.

• Despite this high potential fertility, natural populations

usually remain constant in size, except for small
fluctuations.
• Not all of the potential offspring survive.
 Adaptation
• A species may become adapted to its environment in response to
environmental pressures.
• A trait may be favored due to enhanced survival or reproduction when faced with
a particular aspect of the environment.
• When an environment changes, or when individuals move to a new
environment, natural selection may result in adaptation to the new
conditions.
• Sometimes this results in a new species.
• Natural selection is not random. It occurs in response to environmental
pressures and results in adaptation.
• When natural selection is occurring, some individuals are having
better reproductive success than others.
• Alleles are being passed to the next generation in frequencies that are
different from the current generation.
2.5 Trophic Relationship of Wildlife Community in Ecosystem

2.5.1 energy flow

2.5.2 nutrient cycle
 2.5.1 Energy flow
Energy in the Ecosystem
• Energy from the sun enters and ecosystem when producers
used the energy to make organic matter through
photosynthesis.
• Glucose is the primary energy source (carbohydrate)
produced by photosynthesis.
• Consumers take in this energy when they eat producers or
other consumers.
 Producers
• Producers are autotrophic organisms
that make their own food.
• Phototrophic organisms use
photosynthesis and contain
chlorophyll
(Carbon Dioxide + Water +
Sunlight =Sugar + Oxygen)
• Chemotrophic organisms use
chemicals other than H20, such as
H2S
Consumers
• Consumers are heterotrophic organisms that cannot
make their own food. They must ingest (eat) other
organisms.

• Herbivores feed on vegetation (producers).

• Carnivores feed on herbivores or on other
carnivores.
 Secondary carnivores feed on herbivores,
 Tertiary consumers feed on other carnivores
• Omnivores feed on both producers and consumers
• Scavengers feed on dead or decaying organisms
CONSUMERS!!!
Scavengers feed on CARRION (dead or injured animal corpses)
and dead plant biomass. Scavengers reduce the size of dead
organic matter…Decomposers will finish the job!
• DECOMPOSERS are heterotrophs that recycle small, often microscopic bits of
dead organic matter into inorganic nutrients availbe for plants to take up from the
soil. Decomposers RECYCLE nutrients!
• BACTERIA and FUNGI are decomposers…most worms are plant scavengers!
 Ecological Pyramids
• Relative amounts of energy are represented in an ecological
pyramid: a diagram that shows the relative amounts of
energy in different trophic levels in an ecosystem.
• An ecological pyramid can show energy, biomass, or the
number of organisms in a food web.
Ecological pyramid
Remember
scavengers and
decomposers can
enter at any level!

Tertiary Consumers= CARNIVORE

EATING OTHER CARNIVORES

Secondary Consumers= CARNIVORES

EATING HERBIVORES

Primary Consumers= HERBIVORES

PRODUCERS = Autotrophic Plants

 The Ten Percent Law
• Most of the energy that enters through organisms
in a trophic level does not become biomass. Only
energy used to make biomass remains available to
the next level.

• When all of the energy losses are added together,

only about 10% of the energy entering one
trophic level forms biomass in the next trophic
level. This is known as the 10 percent law.
• The 10 percent law is the main reason that most food chains have five
or less links. Because 90 percent of the food chain’s energy is lost at
each level, the amount of available energy decreases quickly.

10 PERCENT
LAW!!
 2.5.2 Nutrient cycling
• The term cyclical implies repeated movements of materials
in a cyclical path ways in ecosystems.
• Nutrients and other materials are continuously re-
circulated within and among ecosystems.
• In terms of material and nutrients no new input or loss
from the planet, thus concerning materials and nutrients
the earth is closed system.
• Components of an ecosystems that are involved in nutrient
cycling are
Organisms  Oceans/lakes
 Soil/rocks  atmosphere
54
• Cyclical movement of nutrients in an ecosystems are categorized into three
major types:
A. Geochemical
B. Biogeochemical
C. Biochemical

A. Geochemical nutrient cycling

• Movements of materials/nutrients between ecosystems. This means that
removal of nutrients from one ecosystem to the other.
• It is further categorized into gaseous and sedimentary.
• Gaseous cycle: for those elements that have gaseous phase. E.g. N2, CO2 &
H2
• Sedimentary cycle: for those elements that do not have gaseous phase. 55
B. Biogeochemical nutrient cycling
• Nutrient cycling within ecosystem .
 It involves continuous cyclical nutrient movements between organisms and the
physical environments and within an ecosystem.
•That is a sequence of transfer of chemicals between biotic and abiotic
segments of ecosystem.
C. Biochemical nutrient cycling
• Internal redistribution of nutrients in the body of organisms.
 Organisms tend to redistribute nutrients in their body from where it is in excess
to where it is scarce.
E.g. In plants, nutrients could be exchanged between stem and leaves.
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Nutrient cycling in forest ecosystem
2.6 Migration Behavior
2.7 Communication and Signaling Behavior