I have an ecology test tomorrow, and I think one question is going to be “What would you try to find out if you wanted to know why one kind of locusts is more common than another in Scandinavia?”
I’d reckon you’d want to find out the locusts preferred habitat and niche, and compare them to each other. Also what kind of camouflage they have and what they eat. Am I barking up the wrong tree? This is an “A” question, so I really need to analyze it.
Also, another question might be “Explain why the production of phytoplankton in a lake is increased during the spring and fall”, can anyone explain that?
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Different Species, Help?
Posted on October 5, 2011.
I think you are on the right track with the first question. You might also want to consider the temperature tolerances of the two species, the presence/absence of predators, and the presence/absence of prey.
With regards to your second question:
During the summer, deep lakes stratify. The sun warms the water at the surface of the lake but sunlight does not penetrate below a certain depth and so the water at the bottom of the lake remains cold. Since warm water is less dense than cold water, the water at the surface of the lake remains at the surface and the water that is at the bottom of the lake remains at the bottom. There is very little mixing between the two water layers and thus there is no nutrient exchange between the two. When fall comes around, the temperature of the surface water drops and this allows the two layers of water to mix, bringing nutrients from the bottom of the lake into the top layer of the lake where the phytoplankton (which live in the surface waters because they need access to sunlight in order to photosynthesize) can use it. I’m guessing a similar process occurs during the spring but I don’t know the details of that process so I will let someone else answer that one if they want to 🙂
I hope this helps!