Theory question 105
Ecological AssociationsSection B
(a)(i) What is competition? (ii) List two types of competition. (iii) List four factors that organisms compete for in a habitat. (iv) Explain briefly the relationship between competition and succession.
(b)(i) What is structural adaptation? (ii) State four types of structural adaptations in animals.
(c) List four features of variation in humans that are used in crime detection.
(d) Complete the table below by listing three types of adaptive colouration in animals and give one example each of animals that show the colourations.
Table columns: Three types of adaptive colouration in animals | One example of animal that shows the type of colouration
(e) Give three examples of plants found in a tropical Rainforest.
Show the model answer
(a)(i) Competition is the struggle between organisms living together for resources that are in short supply.
(ii) Intraspecific (between members of the same species) and interspecific (between different species).
(iii) Any four: food/nutrients; water; light; space/territory; mates; oxygen.
(iv) During succession new species arrive and compete with those already present; better competitors replace the earlier species, and this repeated replacement continues until a stable climax community forms.
(b)(i) Structural adaptation is the possession of body structures that help an organism survive and reproduce in its habitat.
(ii) Any four: colouration (camouflage/warning); body shape, e.g. streamlined body of fish; protective coverings such as shells, spines, scales; claws and beaks; mouthparts; webbed feet; fins/gills.
(c) Any four: fingerprints; blood groups; DNA profile; facial features/shape of face; height; hair colour/texture; skin colour; handwriting/voice.
(d) Any three: camouflage (cryptic) - chameleon/grasshopper/stick insect; warning colouration - monarch butterfly/wasp/poison-arrow frog; mimicry - harmless fly resembling a wasp, viceroy butterfly; countershading - fish (dark back, light belly); disruptive colouration - zebra.
(e) Any three: mahogany; iroko; obeche; oil palm; rubber tree; ferns; climbers (lianas); epiphytes such as orchids.
In (d) give the type of colouration with an animal that clearly shows it.