SPECIES AFFINITY

Distribution: depends upon individual behavior-the

tendency of organisms to avoid or associate with one
another

he advantages of proximity of individuals of one’s

own species:

. to escape from the fluctuations in environmental

conditions;

g. temporary groupings or huddles by small animals

– to retain heat & lower their metabolic needs

i. defense;

g. bison – shoulder-to- shoulder defense tactics

ii. reproduction

in neither very sparsely nor very densely populated

areas)
nterspecific relations in a biotic community (Biotic
Relationships):

i. Predation

behavior of capturing and feeding on another

        

organism with the latter being consumed wholly or in

part

predator:

free-living organism that feeds on another living

organisms, usually of another species

         prey:

n organism that is eaten by a predator

intraspecific predation (cannabalism): associated

        

with conditions of overcrowding in a population

 ii. Symbiosis

a long-term interspecific relationship in which two

        

species live together in more or less intimate

association

an ecological association involving some transfer

        

of energy or adaptive benefit

         commensalisms:

ne species benefits from the association but the

other species is not significantly affected, eg. birds
feed on insects that cows scare up while grazing

         mutualism:

oth species in the relationship benefit, eg.

. lichens:

utualistic associations between algae & fungi; algae

provide sugars as food; fungal hyphae collect &
hold moisture & mineral nutrients
         parasites: smaller than their host

         ectoparasites:

ive on the body surface of the host and possess

modifications for secure attachment to the host
species

         endoparasites:

ive inside the host, frequently in the digestive track;

xhibit adaptations for resisting the internal

movements and defensive measures of the host’s
body

iv. Competition
haring Resources

a struggle between organisms for food, mates or

        

anyother
otheranimals
         limited of the same or different species may
resources
share a resource without apparently influencing the
distribution or the abundance of the primary animals
 other animals of the same or different species may be
  

kept rare, relative to a common resource

other animals of different species may share the same

    

habitat and certain resources, but the critical resource

is not shared

species of the same genus are usually more closely

       

related ecologically than species from different genera

relatively more congeneric species than disgeneric

   

species would be found living together in the same

habitat

the struggle will be more severe between species of the

    

same genus, when they come into competition with each

other, than between species of distinct genera
• Abundance is determined by the combined effects of all
the factors and all the processes that impinge on a
population

• Abiotic factors can interact with biotic components of

the environment to drive density-dependent processes

• All natural populations are regulated & influenced by

density-dependent processes

• Density-dependent processes are important in regulating

population and determining abundance

Territoriality

- The establishment by an animal or animals of an area

from which other individuals are partially or totally
excluded

- Davies (1978a): individuals or groups are

spaced out more than would be expected from a random
occupation of suitable habitats

- the most important consequence is population regulation

- closely allied to contest competition (density-dependence)

 s
type of interaction effects
ign
+/ both species benefit from
mutualism
+ interaction
one species benefits, one
commensalism +/0
unaffected
each species affected
competition -/-
negatively
predation,
one species benefits, one
parasitism, +/-
is disadvantaged
herbivory
Species-Abundance Relationships

• abundance is affected by a range of factors: physico-

chemical conditions, the level of resources available,
the organism’s life cycle, biotic interactions & other
factors which influence the population’s rates of
birth, death & migration

• the structure of a community is also affected by the

actual relationships between species & by the relative
numbers of organisms in those different species

• the relative abundance of individuals in particular

species have a marked influence on the nature &
function of the community

ix. MacArthur’s broken-stick model:

A model that describes the relative abundance of species
by random segmentization of a line representing the
resources of the environment 
• The resources of a community may be divided
randomly into a number of pieces as a stick may be
broken into a finite number of random sections
• S species dividing the environment into S non-
overlapping niches of randomly allocated size
• The expected abundance of any species in a
percentage of the total number of individuals in the
community
 Periphyton community structure at
Pinang River Basin

100
Percentage (%)

80
60
40
20
0
A B C D E F G H I J K L
Stations

Diatoms Green-algae Cyanobacteria

ii. A niche pre-emption model

• the proportion of the total available resources

used by a species is determined by the success of
a species in pre-empting for its own use part of
the available resources

• the less successful species occupy the resources

left

• the most successful (dominant species) occupy

some fraction k of the resources of niche space, a
2nd species is able to occupy a similar fraction k
of the remainder left by the dominant species,
etc

• often found in communities strongly dominated

by a single species

• plant communities occurring in severe

environments with a small number of species are
well fitted by the geometric series of the niche
pre-emption model
The description of community composition
1. Species abundance curves

1. Raunkiaer (1934)

• Pioneered the quantitative description of community

structure
No. of species

%
1-20 21-40 41-60 61-80 81-100

Frequency distribution of species according to

Raunkiaer (1934)
 • Preston (1948)
No. of species

No. of individuals
1-2 2-4 64-128 256-510

Frequency distribution of species according to Preston (1948)

 (1) (‘Baseline’)
B
A
C
D
(2) (3)
B B
C
A A
C D
E E

(4)
(5)
A B
B
D C A
C
D

No. of species, species composition & abundance

SPECIES-ABUNDANCE RELATIONS

Species abundances:

• Based on the no. of individuals per species

• Species abundance distribution:

frequency distribution of the no. of species

containing

x = 1, 2, 3, 4,………….r individuals

• Relationship between abundance and the no.

of species having that abundance
 x f (frequency of species)

1 32

2 8
3 9
4 2

5 3
6 3

7 3

9 2
10 1
11 2

21 1
28 1

33 1

120 1
Σ x = 389 Σ S = 69
Factors limiting the abundance & distribution of
a species:

iii. Availability of a suitable habitat

iv. The species’ capacity to move between
habitats
v. Rate of population growth

Rare species:

• A species with a small population

• Species with a restricted distribution
• Abundant in just a single location
• Highly specialized, confined to very specific
habitat
IMPORTANCE SPECIES INDICES (ISIs)
(Rushforth & Brook, 1991)

ISI = (fi) (Di)

fi = percent frequency of species i

Di = average relative density of species i

Reflects the distribution and abundance of a

taxon
OMMUNITY CLASSIFICATION

ssume that communities consist of relatively discrete

entities

roduces groups of related communities

ommunities with similar species compositions are

grouped together in sub-sets

. SIMILARITY

ommunity similarity indices:

to quantify similarities between communities (or

        

sampling units (SU); plot; quadrat etc.

to compare samples from the same community at

        

various intervals of time

         to show affinities between samples

 Sorenson’s Similarity Index (Ss):

Ss = 2c
a+b

a: no. of species at location A

b: no. of species at location B

c: no. of species occurring at both locations A

and B
Example:

Samples and abundance of species:

  Locations

Species A B C D E

a 4 3 2 2 0
b 64 54 57 51 0
c 2 0 0 6 0
d 66 81 83 196 108
e 24 40 44 31 0
f 3 2 3 1 0
g 20 2 4 3 1
h 3 20 11 30 18
i 18 4 5 4 0
j 45 5 10 10 0
k 3 1 0 0 0
No. of 11 10 9 10 3
Species

No. of 252 212 219 334 127

individu
als
Values of Sorenson’s Similarity Indices between
samples (locations)

B C D E
Samples 

A 0.95 0.90 0.95 0.43

B 0.95 0.90 0.46

C 0.95 0.50

D 0.45
 B. DISTANCE COEFFICIENTS

. Euclidean Distance (ED)

 
djk = ∑ (Xij – Xik)2
Example:

SUs
Species
A B C

1 20 15 0

2 10 0 6

3 17 0 0
EDA,C = [ (20-0)2 + (10-6)2 + (17-0)2]
 

= (400 + 16 + 289)
 

=
7  05

= 26.6
The ordination of communities
• ordination is a mathematical treatment which allows
communities to be organized on a graph so that those are
most similar in both species composition & relative
abundance will appear closest together, while
communities which differ greatly in the relative
importance of a similar set of species, or which possess
quite different species, appear far apart

2
2 2 5 2 2 2
1 6
2 4 5 6 1 1
5 6 3 2 1
1 4 5 6
65 5 5 1
3 1
1 4 6
6 4 2
2 2 3 4 3
3 4 3
3 3 4 3
3

Salinity (ppt) Dissolved oxygen (mg/l)

• correlations with environmental factors give some specific

hypothesis about the relationship between community
composition & underlying environmental factors
• under a particular set of environmental conditions, a
predictable association of species is likely to occur
• communities with predictable compositions occurred
under specific sets of environmental conditions
 Canonical Discriminant Functions

12    Station L
10 11    Station K
10    Station J
8
9     Station I
6
81 8     Station C
4 2
7 7     Station H
2 6     Station G
3 5     Station F
0 6
9 4     Station E
Function 2

-2 4
510 3     Station D
11
12
-4 2     Station B
-6 1     Station A
-10 0 10 20
Function 1

Figure 3. All group scatterplot of canonical discriminant

function 2 versus function 1, based on density of diatom in
Pinang River Basin.
Classification

• assume that communities consist of relatively discrete

entities

• it produces groups of related communities by a process

conceptually similar to taxonomic classification

• communities with similar species compositions are

grouped together in sub-sets, & similar sub-sets may be
further combined if desired

• Cluster Analysis

-provides a visual or graphic method for examining and

interpreting levels of affinities between groups

- the classes (groups, clusters) are created based on the

similarities or distances among objects (SUs)
- in hierarchical classifications: most similar objects are
assigned to clusters, similar clusters are combined into
larger clusters and so on

- the hierarchy is illustrated by a dendrogram

 0.0
Similarity

0.5

1.0 Sampling
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
units

Hierarchical classification of algal assemblages in

Lake Balaton, Hungary (Padisak, 1980)
 Rescaled Distance Cluster Combine

0 5 7 10 15 20 25

D
3
F

2 H

1 C

The classification of sampling stations based on the

importance values of diatom species using Ward Linkage.
The three discriminated groups are indicated: 1- clean, 2-
brackish water, 3- polluted.
• ordination & classification indicate that a given
location, by virtue mainly of its physical
characteristics, possesses a reasonably predictable
association of species

• a given species which occurs in one predictable

association is also likely to occur with another group
of species under different conditions elsewhere
because:

v. Individuals have tolerance limits which encompass a

range of conditions
vi. Different species have different tolerance limits
vii. Individuals within a species differ from each other in
ecologically relevant respects
viii. Conditions themselves vary as gradients in space

• Community ecology is the study of the community

level of organization

• It is concerned with the nature of interactions between

species & their environment, & with the structure &
activities of the multi-species assemblage at one point
in space & time