University of Nueva Caceres

Graduate School
Naga City

AMARANTO, Jerome Earl A. Advanced Ecology November 23, 2014

MSES
Activity 1: The Match Between the Organism and Their Environment
1. Explain evolution by natural selection. Is natural selection an adaptation or abaptation?
An organism experiences environmental resistance which is a selective pressure
resulting in the survival and reproduction of only those individuals with a genetic
endowment that enables them to cope with their surroundings. In nature, there seems
to be a constant selection and modification of the species’ gene pool, toward features
that enhance survival and reproduction within the existing biotic community and
environment. For example, animals in colder regions have developed thick furs or coats
to conserve warmth in the cold climate; some animals have developed long necks to reach
treetops or an elastic tongue to capture food; some animals have developed spines, i.e.
porcupine, to escape predation.
Abaptation implies that an organism is a product of their past rather than a program
for the future. Therefore, natural selection is an abaptation.

2. Give Darwin’s (1859) series of propositions on the theory of evolution by natural

selection.
The theory of evolution by natural selection is an ecological theory that was first
elaborated by Charles Darwin in 1859, rests on a series of propositions as follows:
1. The individuals that make up a population of species are not identical: they vary,
although sometimes only slightly, in size, rate of development, response to
temperature, and so on.
2. Some, at least, of this variation is heritable. In other words, the characteristics of
an individual are determined to some extent by its genetic make-up. Individuals
receive their genes from their ancestors and therefore tend to share their
characteristics.
3. All populations have the potential to populate the whole earth, and they would
do so if each individual survived and each individual produced its maximum
number of descendants. But they do not: many individuals die prior to
reproduction, and most (if not all) reproduce at a less than maximal rate.
4. Different ancestors leave different numbers of descendants. This means much
more than saying that different individuals produce different numbers of offspring.
It includes also the chances of survival of offspring to reproductive age, the
survival and reproduction of the progeny of these offspring, the survival and
reproduction of their offspring in turn, and so on.
5. Finally, the number of descendants that an individual leaves depends, not entirely
but crucially, on the interaction between the characteristics of the individual and
its environment.
 University of Nueva Caceres
Graduate School
Naga City

AMARANTO, Jerome Earl A. Advanced Ecology November 23, 2014

MSES
Activity 2: Conditions

1. What are some of the extreme conditions in the environment which affects distribution
of organisms?

It is important to understand that environmental conditions described as extreme

means that the condition is extreme for an organism given its particular physiological
characteristics and tolerances. To a cactus, there is nothing extreme about the desert
condition in which the cacti have evolved; the gruesome cold environment of the
Antarctic region is not an extreme condition for penguins.
Aside from extreme temperature, another extreme environmental condition that
affects the distribution of organisms is pH of soil and water. The pH of soil in terrestrial
environments or of water in aquatic ones is a condition that can exert a powerful
influence on the distribution and abundance of organisms. Increased acidity may act in
three ways: (a) directly, by upsetting osmoregulation, enzyme activity or gaseous
exchange across respiratory surfaces; (b) indirectly, by increasing concentration of toxic
heavy metals, particularly aluminum but also manganese and iron, which are essential
plant nutrients at higher pHs; and (c) indirectly, by reducing the quality and range of food
sources available to animals. Further, indirect effects occur because soil pH influences the
availability of nutrients and/or the concentration of toxins.
Salinity is another extreme condition that also affects the distribution of organisms.
For terrestrial plants, the concentration of salts in the soil water offers osmotic resistance
to water uptake. The most extreme saline conditions occur in the arid zones where the
predominant movement of salt water is towards the surface and crystalline salt
accumulates. This occurs especially when crops have been grown in arid regions under
irrigation; salt pans then develop and the land is lost to agriculture.

2. What are the conditions at the boundary between sea and land? Give especial attention
to interactions between salinity, exposure and substrate.

Salinity has important effects on the distribution of organisms intertidal areas but it
does so through interactions with other condition: exposure to the air and nature of the
substrate.
Algae of all types have found suitable habitats permanently immersed in the sea, but
there are no permanently submerged higher plants. The main reason seems to be that
higher plants require a substrate in which their roots can find anchorage; large marine
algae do not have roots but attach themselves to rocs by specialized ‘holdfasts’, except in
regions where the substrates are soft.
 University of Nueva Caceres
Graduate School
Naga City

Most species of higher plant that root in seawater have leaves and shoots that are
exposed to the atmosphere for a large part of the tidal cycle, such as mangroves, species
of the grass genus Spartina, and extreme halophytes such as species of Salicornia that
have aerial shoots but whose roots are exposed to the full salinity of seawater. Where
there is a stable substrate in which plants can root, communities of flowering plants may
extend right through intertidal zone in a continuum extending continuously immersed in
full-strength seawater (like sea grasses) through totally non-saline conditions. Salt
marshes, in particular, encompass a range of salt concentrations running from full-
strength seawater down to totally nonsaline conditions.
Higher plants are absent from the intertidal rocky sea shores except where pockets
of soft substrate may have formed in crevices. Instead, such habitats are dominated by
the algae, which give way to lichens at and above the high tide level where the exposure
to desiccation is highest. The plants and animals that live on rocky sea shores are
influenced by the environmental conditions in a very profound and often particularly
obvious way by the extent of which they tolerate esposure to the aerial environment and
forces of waves and storms. This expresses itself in the zonation of the organizms, with
different species at different heights up the shore.
The extent of the intertidal zone depends on the height of the tides and the slope of
the shore. Away from the shore, the tidal rise and fall are rarely greater than one meter,
but closer to shore, the shape of land mass can funnel the ebb and flow of the water to
produce extraordinary spring tidal ranges of nearly 20 meter in the bay between Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick (Canada). In contrast, the shores of the Mediterranean Sea
experience scarcely any tidal range. On the steep shores and rocky cliffs, the intertidal
zone is very short and zonation is compressed.
Exposure can mean a variety, or a combination of, many different things: desiccation,
extreme temperature, changes in salinity, excessive illumination and sheer physical forces
of pounding waves and storms. Moreover, exposure only really explains the upper limits
of these essentially marine species, and yet zonation depends on them having lower limits
too. For some species there can be too little exposure in the lower zones. For example,
green algae would be starved of blue and especially red light if they were submerged for
long periods too low down the shore. For many other species though, a lower limit to
distribution is set by competition and predation.