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Wize University 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

Photo by CNX OpenStax | CC BY



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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?
Extra Practice
Complete the following life table for a population of fruit flies:
Is this population growing? Explain.
Complete the following life table for a population of fruit flies:
Is this population growing? Explain.
Humans have what type of survivorship curve?
A certain type of bird dies at a steady rate throughout their life. This is an example of what type of survivorship curve?
Stage (x) Complete the following life table for a population of fruit flies:
Is this population growing? Explain.
You are studying a population of ferrets with the following life table.
The ferret population keeps increasing due to excess resources and lack of predators. To control this population there is a decision to prevent all ferrets from class 2-3 to mate or to sterilize all ferrets in class 3-4.
Which of the above strategies will be more effective in slowing the population growth, option 1 or option 2?
You are studying a population of ferrets with the following life table.
Fill in the missing data in the table.
Ecology
Complete the following life table for a population of fruit flies:
Is this population growing? Explain.
Explain and draw the differences between the three survivorship curves.
Humans have what type of survivorship curve?
A certain type of bird dies at a steady rate throughout their life. This is an example of what type of survivorship curve?