Wize AP Biology Textbook > Ecology
Survivorship
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Survivorship
- Survivorship curves: graph showing the number of individuals that survive with respect to age
- Curves are made for one cohort
- Values pulled from the life table
There are Three Types of Survivorship Curves:
- Type I: High survival until old age
- Typically in species with very few offspring and high parental care Example: Humans, elephants
- K-strategist
- Type II: constant mortality/survival probability regardless of age
- Type III: Low survival at young age
- Those that survive live long
- Typical in species with many offspring and low parental care Example: Frog tadpoles (lay over 1000 eggs
- r-strategist
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Sea turtles lay a large number of eggs on the beach shore. These eggs eventually hatch and the beach is swarmed by many sea turtle hatchlings. These hatchlings experience very high levels of predation as they make their way to the ocean. The few young that make it to the ocean tend to live a long time as adult sea turtles.
What type of survivorship curve best represents the sea turtle?