BIOL10011 - all topics

life history

Patterns in individual growth and reproduction that affect population growth - size at maturity - clutch size - longevity

Balancing Selection

Provides advantage for heterozygotes

Single vs. multiple reproductive events

Semelparous species - characterized by a single reproductive event before death] - most invertebrates Iteroparous Species - characterized by multiple reproductive events throughout its lifetime - Most birds and mammals

Reproduction - a paradox

Sexual reproduction creates evolutionary conflicts of interests Females - Reproductive success can be improved by mating with more than one male (polyandry) within their reproductive cycle Males - Reproductive success is compromised by polyandry and sexual selection favours mechanisms to prevent it

Host tolerance

The ability of a host to tolerate infection with a pathogen by minimizing the damage done but without impeding replication or transmission of the pathogen

Elimination

The removal of unabsorbed food that has never been part of the body usually via faeces

Virulence

The severity or harmfulness of a disease

Genomics

The study of DNA sequences of organism's genome

Demography

The study of the vital statistics of populations and how they change over time

Mark-Recapture Technique

The capture and tagging of animals so they can be released and recaptured, allowing an estimate of population size 1. Capture first sampling session and mark each individual. Release them into wild. 2. Wait for individuals to mix back with rest of the population 3. Do Second Sampling session. Check propotion of second sample that was previously marked

Alpha diversity

The composition of a local ecological community with respect to its richness (number of species), evenness (distribution of abundances of the species), or both

Evolution

The cumulative change in a population or species overtime

Cooperative breeding in birds and mammals

The dependent young receive parental care (food defense) from their parents and other individuals in the group

Work

The energy of a group of molecules all going in the same direction. There is order to movement and can push molecules around to specific configurations

Resting metabolic rate

The energy required to maintain essential body processes at rest. Requires animal to be: - not moving - not digesting - in its themoneutral zone

Micro evolution

The evolutionary 'agents of change' that shape the genome within a population

Speciation

The evolutionary process by which new species arise through reproductive isolation. Causes one evolutionary lineage to split into two or more lineages.

ß diversity

The extent of change in community composition, or degree of community differentiation, across a region

allopatric speciation

The formation of new species in populations that are geographically isolated from one another.

sympatric speciation

The formation of new species in populations that live in the same geographic area

Gene pool

The genetic information carried by a population depends on size,distribution and structure

Ecosystem Accounting

Way to count for flows and benefits provided by different components of the ecosystem. Allows you to make basic fundamental accounting decision

conduction

the process by which heat or electricity is directly transmitted through a substance when there is a difference of temperature or of electrical potential between adjoining regions, without movement of the material.

growth curves

different patterns of growth and reproduction form life history of organism and has big impact on population growth rate which is the connection between level of individual and level of population through life history determined by metabolism of organism

thermoneutral zone

range of environmental temperatures within which the metabolic rates are minimal. no heating cost to stay at constant body temp.

ectothermic

referring to organisms for which external sources provide most of the heat for temperature regulation

Anthropocene

the modern geological era during which humans have dramatically affected the environment

Nitrogen Cycle

the series of processes by which nitrogen and its compounds are interconverted in the environment and in living organisms, including nitrogen fixation and decomposition.

Top down control

when the abundance of trophic groups is determined by the existence of predators at the top of the food web

Bottom-up control

when the abundances of trophic groups are determined by the amount of energy available from producers

River Restoration in Melbourne

- "By investing in urban forests, water sensitive urban design, green roofs and stormwater harvesting schemes, we can make the Yarra River in Melbourne swimmable again." -

Logistic Growth Model (discreet) example

- 's' shaped

Western Worldview

- - "Western" worldview is dominated by a divide between Nature and Culture • Nature-Culture dualism

Ammonia

- 1 Nitrogen per molecule - Requires lots of water for excretion and is very toxic. - Is however very soluble and no energy is expended in its synthesis

Urea

- 2 Nitrogen per molecule - Less toxic and requires less water for excretion - Synthesis is however more complex and has a metabolic cost of 4 ATP molecules per molecule of urea

First tetrapodas and move to land

- 350 million years ago some lobe-finned fish, living in shallow lagoons evolved bones that allowed them to 'walk' (paddle in shallow water) - These early amphibians had both gills and lungs (e.g. lungfish) - Amphibians today still require water to reproduce. Tadpoles (aquatic) have gills. Adult frogs (terrestrial) have lungs

Disadvantages of Passive Movement

- Have little or no control over where you end up - Possible movement to environment that is suboptimal for development - Some species employ both passive and active movement

Case study: Cheetah

- Have v little genetic diversity due to founder events and genetic bottlenecks - 100,000 years ago - small population migrated from America to Africa (founder effect) - 11 - 12,000 yrs ago - near total extinction during last ice age (bottle neck) Consequences - High rate of homozygosity - Health and fertility problems due to recessive deleterious alleles - Changing climates and ecosystem alteration

Molluscs - Movement on water and land

- Have variations on a similar body plan: 1. Mantle - dorsal (back) body wall which in some species forms a shell 2. Muscular foot- Used for moving, feeding, manipulation 3. Not all species move as adults(they all however have trochophore larvae (have cilia)

1980s context

- Human pop. 4.5 billion people - Started seeing correlation between human impacts and changing climate for worse - Evidence emerging that air pollution in northern hemisphere was causing heavy rain - Amazon rainforest being cleared - Lots of desertification in asia - Plastics in ocean - Rachel caron's book silent spring - highlighted chemicals we were using in env. and how they drive decline in bird species - Public awareness growing in Aus leading to major political changes in aus

From quadruped to biped: Human story

- Humans bipedal - Great apes typically 'knuckle walked' (quadruped) Changes in skeletal structure - Big toe reduced - Pelvis shortened, more bowl-like than blade-like supporting base of spine - Femur bends inwards, knees straightened, patella central to joint - Connection with spinal column (foramen magnum) on underside of skull - Less robust upper arms

Iteroparity - multiple reproductive events e.g.

- Humpback whales - Mountain ash

Excretion and Elimination of waste in birds, reptiles and mammals

- In birds and reptiles, excretion and elimination of waste occurs from hindgut via a single opening (the cloaca) - Mammals have a separate opening for each

Low genetic diversity

- In small populations, matings between relatives are common. This inbreeding may lower the population's ability to survive and reproduce, which is called inbreeding depression - Lower genetic diversity leads to lowered evolutionary potential, compromised reproductive fitness, and elevates extinction risk.

Why is excretion and elimination important?

- Inability to remove excretory or waste products can lead to disruption of cell membranes, inefficient metabolism and may lead to death - All species across all kingdoms have evolved means to effectively excrete and eliminate waste - Process vary across kingdoms and ecological niches or the species

Specialised Cells that Assist with Excretion: Later Animals

- Include annelids and arthropods - Have evolved adding complex nephritis, along with associated glands - Vertebrates have kidneys and a liver along with associated glands

Genetic Bottleneck Issue

- Increased homozygosity; issues arise in case of recessive deleterious alleles - Fixation of alleles; small population are impacted more significantly by genetic drift - Less potential adaptive capacity; less variation for natural selection to work with

Mutations alter and can introduce variation to a population

- Induced DNA mutation (via chemicals and radiation) - Spontaneous DNA mutation via replication errors - Can arise in ALL parts of genome - When mutations occur in a gene or their regulatory regions they may impact on an organism's phenotype - They can impact gene expression and function *red - regulatory regions of genes *green - coding regions of genes

Parental care - Protection

- Providing protection doesn't always mean brood must stay in the same place. E.g. male waterbug with brood and female sawfly with eggs

Temperature Response Curves

- Q10 shows amount of which biological rate changes with 10 degree rise in temperature. Q10 = 2 means it doubled, Q10= 3 means it tripled

Population Dynamics

- Size is not a static property of populations. Populations can grow or decline in size. - Change in population size = births - deaths + immigrants - emigrants

Drivers of Biodiversity Loss

1. Habitat clearance and Habitat alteration 2. Invasive Species - extremes are the new norm - climate change

Australian ecosystems

Characteristic interactions: - Ice and snow - snow gums - Fire - eucalypt forests - Sitting water - wetland species - High rain - rainforest species - Low rain - desert species

Semelparous Species Longer life cycle

Most life in pre-reproductive stage, then breed and die

Mutations in Coding Regions of Genes

Mutations in coding regions of genes may affect (protein) function either through: - be functionally the same - large or small functional difference

Life history

Pattern of survival and reproductive events for a species - Life history patterns are an 'optimisation' of tradeoffs between growth, survival, and reproduction

Male counter-adaptations to polyandry

Preventing Polyandry - Physically preventing her from mating - Interfering with female signaling

Homeostasis

Process by which organisms maintain a relatively stable internal environment.

Biotope

- an environmentally uniform area. The physical aspect of an ecosystem. - geographic space

Pair of Maxillae

Each with jointed sensory palp and two processes (one sclerotised) for manipulating food

Sources

Large/high quality patches; extinction unlikely; source of dispersers ("donor" patches)

poikilothermic

maintaining the body at the same temperature as the environment

Eavesdropping - Begging Calls

'Play-back' experiments who calls of white-browed scrubwren chicks attracts predators. Chicks make fewer begging calls when predators are nearby.

Intrinsic rate

(Births - Death)

Uric Acid

- 4 Nitrogen per molecule - Highly insoluble and non-toxic. Its excretion conserves water but its synthesis is more complex and entails a higher metabolic cost of 24 ATP molecules per molecule of uric acid

Guanine

- 5 Nitrogen per molecule - Also nearly insoluble and can be excreted with little water loss but comes at high energy cost

Down's syndrome (Aneuploidy)

- A genetic disorder where there is an extra copy of chromosome 21 which impacts intellectual and physical development

Survivorship Curves

- A graphical representation of the survival rate data in a life table - Plot of the proportion of a cohort still alive at each age - Usually plot log() values

Sexual Reproduction

- A mode of reproduction involving the fusion of one haploid gamete with another haploid gamete to create a diploid zygote. - Can increase genetic diversity - Only in 4 Eukaryote Kingdoms - Differs greatly among species - Different organisms spend different amount of time in haploid or diploid stages e.g. animals and plants spend more time in diploid stage vs mosses and fungi spending more time in haploid stages.

Asexual Reproduction

- A mode of reproduction where organism replicates itself without another organism. - Evolved before asexual reproduction. - Found in all domains and kingdoms

Metapopulation

- A population of populations - Local populations occupy discrete habitat patches surrounded by unsuitable habitat. - There is movement of individuals among subpopulations • Habitat patches are not necessarily all occupied at any given point in time • Subpopulations may go extinct, and later be recolonized - The dynamics of the metapopulation as a whole are determined in large part by the rate of extinction of individual subpopulations, and the rate of colonization by dispersal of uninhabited patches - A metapopulation is not simply a patchy habitat, but a dynamic system of linked populations

Teosinte to Corn (point mutation)

- A single point mutation in corn's ancestor teosinte changed hard shell that used to encase every kernel to a soft one

What is Mass Extinction?

- A statistically significant departure from background extinction rates that result in a substantial loss of diversity - Can be local or global, taxonomically specific or taxonomically broad and can occur over different time scales

Genetic Drift in smaller population

- A stronger evolutionary agent of change - Outcomes are more unpredictable

Mimicry

- Ability of an animal to look like another more harmful animal - Benign Batesian mimic resembles a noxious or dangerous model - Predators avoid eating both the model and mimic

Herbivore characteristics

- Absent canines - Flattened molars - Narrow zygomatic arch - No sagittal crest - Large deep mandible (lower jaw) to accomodate large,grinding molars - Sideways facing eyes to facilitate wider field of vision - Diastema - a space or gam between two teeth, most commonly located between incisors and molars - Forum/Magnuum - Where central nervous system goes through. A large opening in the occipttal bone (lower part of the back of your head) . Indicates position of spine in relation to skull

Somatic Mutation

- Affects all daughter cells of a single cell - Not heritable (but can be passed down in plants e.g. through vegetative reproduction) - Occurs after embryo is formed - Organism has affected area but no gametes carry mutation

Germ line Mutations

- Affects gametes (eggs, sperm) - Mutation transmitted via sexual reproduction - Mutations in germline create new alleles and can be heritable - Entire organism carries mutation and half of gametes do

Structure

- Age structure - Sex Ratio

Fungal Serendipity that revolutionised medicine

- Alexander Fleming left inoculated staphylocci (bacteria) on culture plates and went on a holiday - Upon return plates contaminated with fungus and colonies of staphylococci immediately sorrounding fungus were destroyed, whereas other staphylocci colonies further away were normal - Identified mold from genus penicillin and realised that it produced antibiotic now known as penicillin

Budding

- All domains and all kingdoms - Unicellular and multicellular organisms - Parent cell or organism divides into two UNEQUAL parts - A small bud (outgrowth) forms on parent cell or organism and breaks off to form new daughter cell or organism

Cue

- An incidental source of information that may influence the behaviour of a receiver, despite not having evolved under selection for that function - e.g. red necked wallabies use the odour of faeces as a cue revealing the likely presence of a predator - Field experiments revealed that wallabies were more vigilant for enemies if dogs had fed on large than small herbivores

N waste : Solutions

- Animals convert excess nitrogen into ammonia, urea, uric acid and guanine - Most aquatic species excrete ammonia - Most terrestrial convert nitrogen into urea or uric acid - Spiders excrete guanine

Anoxygenic Photoautotrophs

- Anoxygenic photoautotroph use H2S or oganic mols as source of electrons - Have bacteriochorophylls not chloroplasts - Harsh conditions - Important for nutrient recycling in their environments

Coevolution and predator/prey arms races

- Antagonistic interactions may lead to reciprocal evolutionary change and 'arms races' - While both predator and prey improve their offensive and defensive adaptations, there is little change in their net advantage - E.g. Cheetah and Springbok - E.g. Bats and moths - moths have two receptor (A1 and A2) cells that can reveal location of bat. Selection will favour improved bat detection, including at faster flying speeds. A1 cell response to low intensity soun, equivelant to a distant bat. A2 cell response to high intensity sound, equivelant to bat nearby.

Morphometric scales

- Antarctic krill (60 mm; 2 g); provide food for many animals - Humpback whale (16,000 mm; 30,000,000 g)

Case study: Krill - filter feeding

- Anthroopod - Small marine crustaceans - Feed on small phytoplankton and zooplankton - Frontmost appendages with fine comb like structure acting as filters - Staple food source for many marine vertebrates

Diffusion

- Aquatic Plants excrete metabolic wastes through diffusion. Terrestrial Plants excrete into the soil - Water and soil nutrients diffuses into plants through root hair cells - Root hairs are partially permeable - -Diffusion of nutrients no longer required by plants and can also occur through roots in terrestrial plants - In aquatic plants diffusion occurs through leaves and roots are an important pathway to expel nutrients - Root hairs increase surface area for water and nutrient uptake and excretion facilitating this process

Gills

- Aquatic animals - Can be found in a cavity or externally - Highly branched and folded thin tissue for increased surface area - Many gills are a counter current system to gain oxygen and lose CO2 - Water passes over gills and oxygen diffuse across into circulatory system or coelomic fluid

Chemoautotrophs

- Are bacteria that also synthesise their own using oxidation of inorganic compounds as a source of energy rather than sunlight - Use inorganic compounds or organic if available - Likely to form some of earliest biology community - Majority live in hostile environment - Critically important primary production in ecosystem

Vector-transmitted parasites

- Are carried by other organisms between their hosts. - They are microparasites, such as protozoa, bacteria, or viruses - Fleas, lice, ticks, and mosquitoes are the most common vectors

Epidemic diseases

- Are characterised by rapid changes in the prevalence of infection - When outbreaks occur, these pathogens cause waves of infection that can cause rapid population declines - Often such infections disappear from a particular host population for short or long periods

Community interactions categories

- Are classified by whether they help (+), harm (-), or have no effect (0) on the species involved

Aerenchyma

- Are small air pockets in plant tissue allowing for exchange of gasses from exposed partsa of the plant to submerged parts

Demographic Stochasticity

- Arises due to the process of birth and death of indivudals being probabilistic - Even if birth and death rates are constant, from year to year, there will be variability in the actual proportion of individuals that are born to die - In proportionm more variability the smaller the population - Increases the risk of extinction in small populations

asexual reproduction benefits/shortcomings

- Asexual females can produce twice as many childbearing offspring (females) as sexual females, so natural selection might be expected to favour asexual reproduction - Asexual species are more common in agricultural habitats that are typically homogenous suggesting that sexual reproduction provides advantages in spatially and temorally variable environments

Benefits of Asexual reproduction

- Asexual lineages multiply faster than sexual lineages - 'Search' costs associated with finding a mate eliminated - No risk of sexually transmitted diseases

Human mating

- Assortive mating; multiple traits - select for height, skin, colour and intelligence - humans marry a person similar to themselves 80% of the time

Chromodoris Zebra - Size

- Assortive mating; size - Two individuals differ greatly in size are unable to bring reproductive organs together

Olivella biplicata

- Assortive mating; size and location - larger animals live farther up the shoreline and smaller ones lower

Fecundity and parental investment examples in animals

- Atlantic cod produce millions of eggs which drift freely in ocean and larvae have to fend for themselves. Many invertabrates and fish do this. - In contrast, mouth brooding chichlid fish produce relatively low numbers of eggs and then protect their young from predation by hiding them with their mouth - Elephants have long gestation, large young and a long period of parental care for each offspring

Domains

- Bacteria - Archaea - Eukarya

Kingdoms

- Bacteria - Archaea - Protista - Plantae - Fungi - Animalia

Respiration in microbes, fungi and plants

- Bacteria and Archaea respire aerobically, anaerobically or both - Occurs in cytoplasm of cell - Anaerobic bacteria use other compounds (e.g. Hydrogen sulfide or methane) instead of oxygen

Magnetoreception

- Bacteria and many animals detect and respond to the magnetic field, allowing them to orient over long (i.e. migration) and short (i.e. homing) distances

Bat sonar

- Bats cannot avoid obstacles or prey when sounds are played at less than 20kHz because they cannot hear their own cells

Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (VIC)

- Big step in legalising conservation of biodiversity in Australia - NSW shortly after introduced the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 No 101 as well as other states followed by commonwealth government

Carnivore characteristics

- Binocular vision - Prominent canines and large molars - Wide zygomatic arches (cheekbones) allowing for a large temporalis muscle - Low and Small sagittal crest (steeper ridge, stronger bite)

Camouflage and context

- Birds stay with eggs if bird is cryptic and eggs are not. E.g. Ruffed Goose - Birds leave if eggs are cryptic and birds are not e.g. sandpiper.

Jawless Fish (Lampreys and Flogfish) - parasitism

- Blood sucking parasitesof fish - Early forms had an exoskeleton of bone in skin

Birds adaptations for flight

- Bones less dense - Enlarged chest muscle for flight - Feathers - System of air sacs in their body that connect to the lungs - allows them to extract much more oxygen per breath

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)

- Device on animal uses signal from GNSS. e.g. GPS, to calculate location - Data obtained when device retrieved. Or sent to researcher via another satellite - Usually more accurate than satellite tracking (but devices may be heavier)

Geologgers

- Devices measure light levels at regualr times and store data - Once device retrieved, data used to estimate location by interferring solar position with respect to horizon - Not very accurate, but light weight

Managing Country - Cultural Burning

- Burning practices developed by Aboriginal people to enhance the health of the land and its people - Intimate and reflexive - boots on the ground - Performed at the right time for the right purpose Cultural burning can include: • Burning or prevention of burning of Country for the health of particular plants and animals • Patch burning to create different fire intervals across the landscape or it could be used for fuel and hazard reduction. • Burning to gain better access to Country, to clean up important pathways, maintain cultural responsibilities and as part of culture heritage management. • It is ceremony to welcome people to Country • Or it could also be as simple as a campfire around which people gather to share, learn, and celebrate

Oceans becoming more acidic

- CO2 dissolved in ocean, reacts with H2O and produces carbonic acid - Ocean pH has dropped from 8.21 to 8.1 since industrial revolution affecting calcifying marine life.

Atmospheric CO2 is increasing

- CO2 levels are increasing than they have been for past 800,000 years - CO2 traps in heat and raises global temps

Coelom

- Can be fluid filled and used as an internal support - Separates international processes from gut allowing for organs - Allows transport of fluids (circulatory and excretory systems) - Provides space for development of internal organs - Enables increased body size

Population boosting

- Captive breeding to increase population numbers before release back into the wild release - Might be coupled with other strategies (e.g. threat reduction) - e.g. many native Australian mammals (e.g. bilbies, numbats, bettongs, bridled nail-tail wallabies, hare wallabies) and the Lord Howe Island stick insect

Genetic Bottleneck

- Caused by events that reduces the size and genetic diversity of a population significantly - These events randomly impact individually in a population not related to natural selection - Impact allele frequency by chance - Population therefore contains a smaller mostly random sample of alleles present in original population Random events impact population in 2 ways: reduce # of individuals and/or separate a population

Structures evolved to facilitate active movement on land

- Cell walls - Vascular tissue - Ligmin and bark - Seeds or spores - Legs

Causes of Mass Extinction

- Change in climate - Habitat loss - Competition - Predation

Effects of disturbance

- Changed environmental conditions may favour different species to those present prior to the disturbance; selection - They may allow new species to move in via dispersal - Disturbance can also have random effects on community composition - drift

Habitat loss and degradation

- Changes to habitat include broadscale loss of habitat due to clearing for agriculture, forestry, urbanization, altered fire patterns and degradation from other human activities

Six modalities (or channels)

- Chemical - Electricity - Light - Magnetic - Mechanical - Sound

Diversity of Mouthparts - Invertebrates

- Chewing, Piercing (sucking, carving, siphoning, sponging) - Insects typically spend a disproportionate amount of life as juveniles to accumulate resources necessary for adult life - Adult and juvenile stages can be very different - Some insects do not feed as adults

Benefits of Sexual Reproduction

- Combining beneficial alleles - Generation of novel genotypes - 'Faster' evolution - Clearance of deleterious mutations

Emigration Dispersal

- Commonly density dependent - usually triggered by more intense competition in crowded areas - Can also go the other way; indivs leave low density patches (e.g. to avoid inbreeding) - Regulatory effect on populations (similar to density dependent mortality) - Possibly the main effect of dispersal for the dynamics of single populations

Understanding genotype approaches

- Compare specific studies - Look across the distribution of a phenotype - Look at evolutionary relationships

What causes animal numbers to be reduced

- Competition (mates, food and resources) - Selection (disease, predation) - Environment (climate,ecology) - All contribute to natural selection (survival and reproduction of the fittest)

Examples of larger changes within genome

- DNA is copied a second time and/or flipped around (inverted) - Chromosomes are joined together or gained/lost (aneuploidy) - Entire genomes are duplicated - Less common but often greater genetic consequence

What can fossils tell us?

- Dates - Physiology - Diet - Reproductive mode - Movement - Migration - Development - Themoregulation - Colour - Behaviour

Tasmanian Tiger

- Declared extinct in 1936 - Settles hunted tasmanian tiger, destroyed its habitat and introduced disease

Migration Rates and calculating change in residents

- Delta P = m(x-p) - Migration is a significant evolutionary agent for a population when difference in allele frequency in residents (p) and migrants (x) is great OR when migration rate (m) is high

Can disease cause populations to go extinct?

- Density dependent specialist pathogens (i.e., those infecting a single host and where transmission is more successful when population numbers are high) rarely make their hosts extinct, although host numbers could be reduced to the point that other processes could cause extinctions. They can be transmitted between common reservoir hosts and species that may have small population sizes. These three traits allow for persistent transmission (and decreased host fitness) even when a host is at low abundance

Sexual Selection

- Differences between the sexes (sexual dimorphism) are not easily explained by natural selection - Mate choice and male-male competition are both underlying mechanisms of sexual selection; both involve signalling

Stoneflies

- Different species but same group - Small adaptations facilitating toward flight - started from swim, row, swim-skim, hindleg, jump

Feeding Stratagies in Heterotrophs

- Diffusion and Phagocytosis - Filter Feeding - Parasitism - Diversity of Mouthparts - Invertebrates - Evolution of Jaws - Vertebrates - Evolution of teeth

Evolution of mammales and stance

- Dinosaurs came from same lineage as crocodiles but unlike crocs they walk upright - Mammals also evolved from reptiles and walk upright - Hip joints, and upper limb bones changed in mammals and dinos - Changes stance enabling quicker locomotion (longer legs)

Discrete Exponential Growth Model

- Discrete time (e.g. t refers to year t) - Births and deaths only - Females (more convenient for modelling, common practice) - If R is constant across time Nt=N₀R^t

Sulfolobus - Chemoautotrophs

- Domain: Archaea - Phylum: Crenarchaeota - Thrive in volcanic springs with sulfur, low pH (2,3) and high temps (75-85 degrees Celsius) - Lysogenic viruses infect sulfolobus for protection in harsh condition - Virus have adaptation to allow them to lie in host for longer. Host cells not lysed after viral replication

Cyanobacteria

- Domain: Bacteria - Earliest oxygenic photoautotrophs (single celled cyanobacteria) - Additional nutrients from diffusion or osmosis of water

Case Study: Purple Sulphur Bacteria - Anoxygenic Photoautotrophs

- Domain: Bacteria - Phylum: Proteobacteria - Sulfur is by-product of photosynthesis - Novel adaptation reported - These bacteria releases some light energy back into environment as heat - This raises water temperature enabling them to out compete other (less heat tolerant) species

Algae

- Domain: Eukaryote - Closest relatives of land plants (green algae) - Multicellular and large size (typically thin for increased SA:V) - Require water - moves passively through cell walls giving nutrients - No water-absorbing or water-conducting structure and desiccation not an issue

M*n physically preventing females from mating

- Dragonflies 'mate guard' by attaching themselves to female therefore preventing other males from copulating - Males of many butterflies protect their paternity with a sphragis (dried seminal fluid that covers the female genital opening, preventing other m*n from mating)

Guttation

- Drops of xylem sap gather on tips or edges of leaves of some plants and a number of fungi - Usually happens at night when stomata re closed and water builds up due to root pressure - Not the same as dew

R-selected species can undergo population booms and busts example

- E.g. African locusts - an r-selected species which undergoes population booms in response to good environmental conditions (abundant food) - • The life history strategy of the locust makes this population boom possible. Females mature early (at 1-6 months of age depending upon conditions, a female can lay 100 eggs at a time, and they have a short lifespan of 3-6 months. 2-5 generations per year are possible - A 10-16 fold increase in numbers are possible from one generation to the next. At that rate of increase, an initial swarm of just 10000 locusts can create a swarm of 100 billion locusts in just seven generations within less than 2 years

Continuous breeding

- E.g. In equitorial areas with little variability in temp., rain, photoperiod; many primates

Symbiotic Autotrophic Algae

- E.g. Zooxanthellae - Zooxanthellae live in symbiosis within coral - Provide nutrients to coral (sugars, glycerol, amino acids) and gain CO2, phosphates and nitrogen compounds in return

Cartilaginous (more flexible) vs Bony Fish: Movement and bouyancy

- Earliest fish had a catilaginous skeleton (sharks and rays) - Bony skeleton evolved later ( all other fish and all vertebrates) - Fish move using their caudal tail and fins (vary across species) - Movement is active and assisted by muscle - Maintenance of bouyancy - essential to save energy

Heterotrophs - Ancestral state

- Earliest life forms likely single-celled primitive heterotrophs - Fed by absorbing acid and base molecules in early organic (C) oceans - Chemical breakdown was form of fermentation - Use similar formentation methods when making beer, cheese, etc.

Geographic Isolation Example

- Elk found in North America and red Deer found in Europe and Asia (allopatric) - Gene flow ended 9,000 yrs ago - Reproduction is possible when brought together, complete reproductive isolation takes time.

End-Triassic Mass Extinction

- Ended 200 million years ago - Caused by increase in extinction rates AND decrease in origination - Increase in Ext. rates were caused by increased volcanic activity, thought to have increase atmospheric CO2 leading to increase temperatures and a calcification crises in oceans - Marine organisms (particularly invertebrates e.g. choral that require calcium), flowering plants and land vertebrates affected - Led to new niches for other organisms to occupy

End Ordovician Extinction

- Ended 443 million years ago - Animals still haven't conquered land - Caused by increase in extinction rates - Within 3.5 - 1.9 million years 50-60% of marine genera and nearly 85% of marine species were lost - Increase in extinction rates were caused by climate change 1) First there was global cooling and glaciation, causing sea level fall, loss of shallow water habitat and change in ocean chemistry 2) Followed by global warming causing sea level to rise and change in ocean chemistry - After this biodiversity increased again

Disadvantages of Active movement

- Energy is required for movement (varies on species and environment) - Individuals must balance investment in resources for movement against those they can invest in cellular maintenance and reproduction - Some species employ both passive and active movement

Random mating

- Equal probability that mating will occur between 2 individuals in a population (is rare)

Evolutionary diversification example frog ponds

- Evolution of new speceis of frog

Flagella

- Evolved as a whip like appendage that protrudes from the cell body of prokaryote and eukaryote - Primary function is locomotion - Locomotion is often a single plane - Can also function as a sensory organelle - Larvae of sponges have a flagellum that assists with movement. the majority of sperm in animals has a flagellum that is critical for sperm motility

Origin of birds

- Evolved from dromaeosaurs - In 1861 fossil was discovered with feathers and wings evidence for evolutionary origin of birds from dinosaurs

Evolution of Jaws - Vertebrates

- Evolved from gill arches - Once jaws evolved, teeth followed - Evolution of jawed fish is linked to decline of marine invertebrates (e.g. trilobites)

Vertebrates

- Evolved in water and moved onto land - Vertebrates are subphylums of chordates

Mitochondria

- Evolved via endosymbiosis - Eukaryote host engulfed an aerobic prokaryote - Alternatively - prokaryote host engulfed facultive anaerobic prokaryote - Part of endosymbiotic theory

Dodo

- Explorers to Mauritius in the 1600s killed the dodo for sport and food - Also introduced rats that ate dodo eggs

Australian Cuckoos

- Fairy-wren hosts reject chicks of Horsfield's Bronze cuckoo - Horsfield's bronze cuckoo has evolved a mimetic egg that fairy-wrens are unable to distinguish from their own. In response, fair-wrens have aquired ability to recognise and reject cuckoo chicks. - Prediction - Over evolutionary time, cuckoo chicks will be visual mimics of fairy wren chicks

Selection acts on dominant alleles faster than recessive alleles

- Favoured dominant alleles (red line) immediately increase in frequency - Selection is not likely to drive up a dominant allele to fixation, as recessive alleles can 'hide' in the heterozygous state - Favoured recessive alleles (blue line) are NOT exposed to selection intially because they are likely to occur only in heterozygous genotypes - Once recessive homozygotes begin to appear, they quickly fix in the population

Filter Feeding

- Feed by straining organic matter and food particles from water through specialised filtering structure - Incredible diversity of species that have evolved this mode of feeding

Parasitism

- Feed from other species often without killing them - Do not need to exert energy to feed - Food supply entirely dependent on host - Evolve structures to remain with host

Dung Beetles

- Feed on faeces - Can roll up to 10x their weight - Can bury over 250x their own mess in one night - Typically locate the dung by smell - One species navigates by polarised moonlight

Coevolution of sensory information example

- Female European cuckoo adds an egg to the clutch of the 'host' species - Cuckoo chick develops rapidly, hatching befpre host chicks, and ejects the host eggs - Host parents then raise the cuckoo chick as its own - Selection on host to detect brood parasite, selection on cuckoo to avoid being detected European Cuckoos Cuckoos signals - Visual resemblence to raptors - encouraging host to leave nest, allowing cuckoo to fly onto the nest, remove an egg and lay her own, all in <10s Host response - Hosts detect a cuckoo near nest and/or a non-matching egg in the nest will abandon the nest and start again Slelection on improved egg mimickry - Across species, the degree of egg mimicry is higher in species with higher host rejection rates. - Egg mimiry reduces risk of host rejection of cuckoo eggs, but this selects for better discrimination by hosts

Parental Care - Provisioning

- Female muddaubing wasp places an egg in mud nest, and then fills nest with a variable number and size of spiders - Size of the adult wasps that emerge from the mud nests is remarkably similar reflecting a balance between the number and size of spider prey

How did respiration evolve?

- First life forms anaerobically - Photosynthetic bacteria involved 3.5 billion years ago introducing oxygen and changing environment - 2.8 billion years ago aerobic respiration evolved. Organisms adapting meant benefits due to more energy - Around same time as Great Oxygenation Event

Legacy of change of stance

- Fish move bodies from side to side when the swim - Sprawling animals like crocs and lizards do the same - Change of stance: mammals move back half of body forward and back (bend in different plane) - Dolphins and whales swim same way (compared with fish)

Non mating reproduction

- Fission, fragmentation, budding and vegetative reproduction - clones - no change in allele composition

Specialised Cells that Assist with Excretion: Earlier Animals

- Flame cells are specialised excretory cells found in freshwater invertebrates (e.g. rotifers, flatworms) - Function like mammalian kidney - remove waste material - Bundles of flame cells called protonephridia

Angiosperm Reproduction

- Flower is reproductive organ - Pollen needs to get to female parts to ovary through pollination - Can occur biotically (through animals, attracting their pollinators) or abiotically (through wind, rain, water)

Population stability and fluctuation

- Fluctuations can occur for biotic and abiotic reasons - e.g. first moose crash likely due to high predation by wolves; second major crash due to harsh winter and food limitation - Population cycling at regular intervals also possible in natural populations - e.g. hare and lynx populations go through peaks and troughs on a roughly 10- year cycle. Most likely cause is predator build-up as hare populations increase, leading to hare overexploitation and a crash in their populations followed by a crash of the predators

Spatial and Temporal Variation

- Food is patchily distributed in space - so needs to be detected - Predator may also arrive unexpectedly

Dawn of Animals

- Fossil evidence suggests first animal were similar to sponges - Biomarkers (molecules that has to be made by some type of organism) support fossil evidence and suggest animalhas evolved by about 635 million years ago - Around 575 million years ago larger and more diverse animals appear - the Edicaran fauna (named after place in Aus)

Fission

- Found in all domains and kingdoms - Occus in unicellular and multicellular organisms - A parent or cellular organism divides itself into EQUAL parts - Binary Fission involves bacteria and archaea and is most common - Multiple Fission is common in protista resulting in multiple daughter cells

Fragmentation and Regeneration

- Found in all eukaryote kingdoms - Multicellular organism - Fragments of an organism breaks off and regenerate into a new organism

Spore Formation

- Found in protista, fungi, plantae - Unicellular and multicellular organism - Parent plant forms hundreds of spores which may be stored in a casing until released - Spores allow for dispersal of organism to new locations - Can grow into new individuals without fertilisation - Many organisms that can reproduce via asexual spores can also reproduce sexually

Vegetative Propagation

- Found only in plantar - Multicellular organisms - Where a new plant grows from a fragment of the parent plant - Many different strategies including runners, bulbs, tubers, suckers/basel shoots/root sprouts

Simple Parasite life-cycle

- Free living infective stage released from infected host and then infects another individual host of the same species

Selection example frog ponds

- Frogs spread out alonf environmental gradient depending on where they're better suited to living

Why gametes are dimorphic

- Gametes communicate through ligand and receptor molecues. Ligand can either be membrane bound or released in local environment - When interacting cells produce ligand and receptor symmetrically, ligand will bing to receptors on its own membrane as well as those on the other cell. May impair intercellular signaling. Producing ligand and receptor in an asymmetric manner resolves the issue.

Transpiration

- Gaseous wastes and water are excreted through stomata, lenticles of the stem, and other surface of the stem or fruits - Only 0.5 - 3% taken up by roots is used for growth and metabolism - Remaining 97-99.5% is lost by transpiration and guttation - Occurs during day when stomata are open

Technology and genome sequencing

- Genomes of some organisms are very big - Need a sufficient sample size to determine relationships which may involve significant sequencing - Complex analysis with big data requires bioinformatics

How does oxygen influence evolution?

- Giant insects evolved when oxygen was around 30+% in atmosphere (around 20% today) - More oxygen meant more for trachea without need of it expanding.

Hardy-Weinberg Theorem

- Gives genotype frequencies expected for any possible set of allele frequencies - Under certain conditions, allele frequencies will not change from one generation to the next. They remain in equilibrium and dominant alleles can't overrun recessives

Photoautotrophs

- Green plants, some bacteria and algae that manufacture all their required organic molecules from simple inorganic molecules, using sunlight as the energy source for photosynthesis - Earliest were likely photosynthetic bacteria - Capable of anoxygenic photosynthesis - Increase in O2 led to oxygenic photosynthesis - Evolved about 2.7 billion years ago - Endosymbiotic theory result in first plant cells - Mitochondria and chloroplasts are well known endosymbionts (organelles)

Exponential Growth

- Growth is proportional to the population size - a population's per capita (per individual) growth rate stays the same regardless of population size, making the population grow faster and faster as it gets larger

Specialised cells that assist with Excretion: Plants

- Guard cells are located on outer surface of leaves and stems - Produced in pairs with gap between (stomata pore) - Involved in gas exchange and assist with controlling water loss - Stomatal pores open most when plant has lots of water and guard cells are swollen - Stomata pores close when water availability is low and guard cells shrink

Autotroph Adaptations: Challenge of living on land

- H2O and nutrients limited and often in soil Plants Adaptations - Roots to extract H2O and dissolved nutrients from soil - Vascular tissue for transporting H2O and nutrients - Water-resistant coating (cuticle) for minimuk H2O loss to atmosphere - Tissue and Structural Support - Diversity of leaf types and size for photosynthesis

Human Causes of Extinction

- Habitat loss ( Can occur due to deforestation, agriculture or urban devolopment) - Species introductions (diseases and parasites) - Pollution - Over exploitation - Climate change

Metapopulation dynamics habitats

- Habitat patches may vary in size, quality, and isolation from other patches • All of these factors influence how many individuals move among the subpopulation • E.g. extinction higher in smaller patches (can sustain smaller subpopulations) • E.g. colonization higher in patches in close proximity to other patches (more likely dispersers make it to the patch) - In "classic" metapopulations: patches of similar characteristics, roughly equal probability of extinction - In real systems there may be substantial variation in the size and/or quality of habitat patches

Threat reduction

- Habitat restoration - Creation of reserves (e.g. national parks, marine protected areas) e.g. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has conservation zones to reduce threatening activities - Reducing exploitation levels - Removal of invasive species - predators and competitors

Insects

- Hard exoskeleton (cuticle) - Need to moult - Inhavit water, land and air - Six legs - Wings

Evolution of multicellularity

- Has evolved multiple times - Fossils can help us to understand when multicellularity evolved - Organism alive today can help us to understand evolution of multicellularity

Bony fish

- Have a swim bladder for buoyancy - Swim bladders are evolutionary closely related (homologous) to lungs

Individual marking and Observation

- Information about movement from individual observations (live observation, dead recoveries) - Need substantial observation effort, gaps in data, limitations to monitor long-distance movement

Mitochondrial Genome

- Inherited maternally and represents clonal lineages - Circular double stranded DNA molecule - Mutations occur - Haploid genome - Haplotypes

Trachea

- Insects' exoskeleton is impermeable - Relies on diffusion - Openings to trachea called spiracles can be opened and closed when needed - Some insects can ventilate tracheal system with muscle contractions - Trachea system is separate to circulatory system

Gene flow through Hybridisation

- Interbreeding of individuals from genetically distinct population or closely related species to produce viable offspring - Integration of alleles from different genetic background - Offspring display traits and characteristics of both parents but may be sterile

Density-Dependence Mechanisms

- Intraspecific competition for resources (e.g. food, space) - Disease - Predation - Toxic wastes

Invasive species alter community composition and structure

- Invasion by feral (non‐native) species is a threatening process in ecological communities around the world - Invasive species can alter community structure and composition in dramatic ways - Invasive species affect terrestrial, freshwater & marine communities

Fermentation and Food

- Involves using bacteria or yeast to break down startch and sugar

Allee Effect

- Is a small population phenomenon in which a population growth rate is reduced by undercrowding (low population density) - Widely believed to be common and are important for conservation efforts. Even if threats causing decline to small pop. are removed, a pop may not recover from strong allee effect - Most common mechanism causing allee effect is mate limitation - Can also occur through cooperative defense, predator saturation, cooperative breeding, cooperative feeding or dispersal

Amoeba

- Kingdom Protista - Following endocytosis, amoeba digest food particles by releasing enzymes into the food vacuole - Post digestion waste is expelled in a reverse process to phagocytosis called exocytosis

Cartilaginous Fish

- Large liver (25-30% of body weight) filled with low density oil (still need to swim to maintain buoyancy) - Cartilage which is lighter than bone - Pectoral fins provide dynamic lift.

Overexploitation

- Large, slow reproducing species are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation. - Collections of animals and plants for food, medicines, pet trade

Case Study - Blue Whale - filter feeding

- Largest animal and filter feeder - Baleen Whales - Have fringed parts with fingerlike material, baleen, attached to upper jaws - Likely that ancestors had teeth

Postzygotic Isolation Example

- Leopard frog X wood frog - Calls of the four frogs are different plus any hybrids formed produce defective embryos

Genetic Drift in larger population

- Less significant agent of change - Population needs to be large enough that random sampling effects do not impact allele frequency significantly

RCP 8.5

- Little effort is made to curb emissions - Energy continues to come from fossil fuels and transportation continues to rely on it - Sea levels predicted to rise up to .36m by 2100. Temps will rise less than 4 degrees celsius

Advantages of passive movement

- Little or no energy expenditure - Organisms can passively move largely through water and air however some species attach themselves to 'hosts' (e.g. parasites, spores or seeds)

Familiar forms of parental care

- Little wattlebird feeds their nestlings - Joey within female kangaroo's pouch

Logistic Growth Model (discreet)

- Makes r in Nt₊₁ = Nt(1 + r) dependent of population size

Reproductive Conflict in Dunnocks

- Male and female territories form independently, and pattern of overlap determines the 'mating system'

Female choice

- Male signals reflect their quality, allowing females to choose wisely - Male fairy wrens are not only colourful but also court femals with yellow flowers - Male lyrebirds have fabulous tail feathers, and include vocal mimicry in their courtship singing

Mxn can cxre (no)

- Male weedy seaa dragon with pink eggs - Male brush turkeys incubate eggs in massive nests

Human driven extinctions

- Many organisms that have gone extinct due to humans including the dodo and Tasmanian tiger - Extinction rates are becoming comparable to previous mass extinction rates - Extinction of one or a few species can have cascading effects

Aggressive Mimicry

- Many predators have evolved aggressive mimicry strategies - E.g. Frogfish: have a 'lure' that attracts prey by mimicking worms, small shrimps or fish. The prey approaches lure and is swallowed by frogfish. - E.g. Surface odour of a salticid spider resembles green tree ants, allowing spider to gain acces to nest where it feeds on ant larvae

Cilia in Animals

- Marine annelids and most molluscs (including slugs and snails) have a larvae phase that use cilia to move through water

Nitrogenous Waste

- Protein required by heterotrophic animals and metabolism of protein leans to high concentration of nitrogen waste - Form of nitrogen waste varies for different animals due to environment and phylogeny - Organs in animals to process nitrogen also varies from simple to complex

Assumptions in Mark-Recapture

- Marks are not lost between sampling sessions - Marking does not alter the behaviour of individuals (trap-shy; trap-happy) - No births, deaths, immigration, emigration between sessions (=closed population) - If assumptions not well met, estimates will be biased - Model extensions exist to deal with some of these issues; e.g. suite of methods for open populations

Disassortive Mating (negative assortive)

- Mate with individuals that do not share alleles 'opposite attract' Can result in: - Increased genotypic diversity - More heterozygosity

Assortive Mating (positive assortive)

- Mate with individuals that share alleles Can result in: - Decreased genotypic diversity - Increased homozygosity

Boundaries

- May be natural or arbitarily defined. Need to be appropriate to organism under study and question being asked

Natural Selection on Avian Attack on Clay Mouse

- Measuring natural selection on coat colour in old field mice - Clay models of mice were painted to resemble habitat colour and placed in either mainland or beach habitats - Predation highest when coat colour provided no camouflage

Parasitic Plants

- Mistletoe - Derive all nutrients from other plants - Modified roots that penetrates host plants walls connecting them to vascular system

Advantages of Active movement

- More control of where they move to - Organism actively moves through all environments

Aerial roots

- More specifically pneumatophores, are useful in anoxic or waterlogged soil

Polyploidy

- More than two complete sets of chromosomes - Common in plants, some fish, amphibeans and worms - Arises from error in mitosis or meiosis - Can lead to speciation - Is heritable

Fungi respiration

- Most aerobic (some anaerobic) - In soil hyphae absorb oxygen from tiny air spaces in between soil particles - Oxygen and Carbon can move across thin outerwall of hyphae by absorption

The evolution of sturdier fish: precursor to legs

- Most bony fish have fins made of long rays of bone (ray-finned fishes) - Some fishes developed more substantial bones in the fins (lobe-finned fish) e.g. lung fish - These bones would have been able to support the weight of fish

Eavesdropping - Inter-specific Cues

- Most eavesdropping is of an intra-specific signal - However web building spider eavesdrops odours from the lycaenid butterfly tending ant. Is unusual because ant social signal is also a cue for both a mutualist and a predator.

Fungi

- Most multicellular with thread like hyphae - Cells with nuclei and membrane bound organelles - Cell walls of chitin - Heterotrophs (by absorption)

Active Transport

- Most species have specialised cell or organs that have evolved to assist with excretion and elimination - Allow for organism to be larger and more complex in size

Animalia

- Multicellular - Cells with nuclei and membrane bound organelles - No cell walls - Heterotrophs (by ingestion) - Complex organ systems

Plantae

- Multicellular land plants - Cells with nuclei and membrane bounded organelles - Cell walls of cellulose - Autotrophs - Complex organ systems

Genes code for proteins involved in complex biological, cellular and molecular functions that contribute to phenotype

- Multiple genes contribute to a phenotype in a cumulative way - While all genes are required, some may be more important or influential than others - Alleles influence or improve a phenotype may be the subject of selection - Biological, cellular and molecular functions are part of a larger network of complex interactions and feedbacks

Co‐evolution drives beneficial & antagonistic relationships between species

- Mutualistic relationships (+/+) are common in many ecological communities • These relationships are the result of co‐ evolution: when unrelated organisms evolve in a coordinated fashion • Mutualistic relationships can be specific (between 2 species) or diffuse (between groups of species)

Mycorrhizae: Plants & fungi

- Mycorrhizae is process • Fungi supply water and nutrients (e.g., N and P) to plants • Plants supply products of photosynthesis (sugars) to fungi • Plants show increased resistance to pathogens • Global association: present in ~80% of plant species - Mutualistc • Common mycorrhizal networks transmit water, nutrients, information between plants • Multiple plants are linked belowground • Communication via biochemical signals changes plant behaviour • Root growth, shoot growth, photosynthetic rate, foliar nutrition and defence responses

Population size and influence on evolutionary process

- N = Total no. in population - Ne = Effective population size that contribute to breeding - Smaller populations are most susceptible to change Agents of change 1. Mutation (more individuals = more chance of mutation 2. Natural Selection (smaller population fix alleles that are under election faster) 3. Genetic Drift (smaller population are more likely to fix alleles via random chance)

Adaptations needed for moving in air

- Need to be light - Produce lots of seeds - chance of landing in good environment is low - Large surface area for lift - helicopter seeds, wings, gliding membranes - Enlarged muscles for flight - May need to trade off against something else

Density-dependent poplation Regulation

- Negative density-dependence introduces a negative feedback in the system - Population increases leading to growth rate decreasing - 'Stable' system, maximum poplation size - Carrying capacity is the maximum population size of a species that an environment can sustain

Parental Care is costly and may compromise future reproduction

- Net benefit of the female is maximised at PIm but tis is not the best outcome for the offspring (more close to Plo) - Female Diaea spiders lay a single clutch of eggs, but subsequently accumulate more weight: the more weight they gain the more soma available to their matricidal offspring (young eat on dead mum)

Examples of Parasites

- Protozoans • Animals • Fungi • Plants

Cues for predators

- Niko Tinbergen's classic field experiment, in which the broken shell from a newly hatched black-headed gull was placed at different distances from an intact egg, showed that the white inside of the eggshell is conspicuous (clearly visible) - Black-headed gull parents remove the broken egg shell immediately after their chick has hatched

Anaerobic Respiration

- No oxygen is used in respiration pathway. Quickly releases energy. Used in low level oxygen environments ** Fermintation is NOT considered respiration

Excretion in Fungi

- No specialised organs - Some waste and biproducts are eliminated by passive transport - Active Transport of waste occurs via specialised membrane channels and/or are expelled directly using a comparable method to bacteria (exocytosis with food vacuoles or contractile vacuoles)

Model assumptions and departures

- No variability in the environment (constant intrisnic growth rate and carrying capacity) - No effects of chance (particularly relevant for small populations) - No consideration of population structure - No delays; if there are delays, a populatio nmay overshoot carrying capacity. During an overshoot period, the carrying capacity may be lowered by resource destruction

Size/Density

- Not a static property - Affected by births, deaths, immigration and emigration

Biomass of Parasites

- Not only numerically but can be large

Species Diversity

- Number of species and abundance of each species that live in a particular location - There are less catalogued than predicted

Respiration in Plants

- Obtain oxygen via diffusion through: 1. Stomata (leaves and Stem) 2. Lenticles (stems of woody plants and some roots) - Plants also obtain oxygen via absorption through roots

Parthenogenesis

- Occurs in Animalia - Multicellular organisms - Unfertilised egg develops into an individual - In water fleas, wasps, bees, ants, cone fish and lizards - Most organisms that reproduce by pathenogenesis can also reproduce sexually. e.g. komodo dragon.

Challenges of moving on land

- Oxygen in air; animals need to evolve means to capture oxygen - Lack of water; dehydration and dessication is a major problem - UV radiation; causes DNA and cell damage - No support; species require structures that support them - Energy hungry; passive movement is typically limited - Terrestrial ecosystems are complex and vary dramatically

Aerobic Respiration

- Oxygen is used in respiration pathway. More ATP released. Allowed for evolution of multicellular and larger organism size

Host-parasite interactions, +/-

- Parasites are predators that eat prey in units of less than one. - Tolerable parasites are those that have evolved to ensure their own survival and reproduction but at the same time with minimum pain and cost to the host

Parasite life-cycles Complex

- Parasites sequentially infect several different host species over their life cycle - Ex. trematodes have 3 species life cycles

Eavesdropping - Courtship Calls

- Parasitoid flies eavesdrop on courtship calls of bush-crickets - males that are more attractive to females are more likely to be parasitised

Symbiotic Legumes

- Pea Plants - Many legumes house other symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in root structures called root modules - Bacteria are beneficial when soils have poor nutrients

Vascular System

- Phloem (transports sugars) and Xylem (H2O and mineral ions transport) - Xylem can be reinforced by lignin in complex plants (vascular) - Allow for increased size due to conducting system allowing transport of sugars and water to larger areas and lignin preventing xylem cells from collapsing under hydrostatic pressure

Emperical Support of Endosymbiotic Theory

- Phylogenetically related: Chloroplasts to cyanobacteria and mitochondria to proteobacteria - Genome reduced as organelles have their own DNA but genome size is reduced compared to prokaryote ancestors - Across species # of chloroplasts vary

Monogamy vs polyandry vs polygyny

- Polyandry is best outcome for females - Polygyny is best outcome for the a male, but not the b male

Crop Domestication (Whole genome duplication)

- Polyploid plant species were more likely to be domesticated into crop species that those that are not

Logistic Growth Model

- Population grows more slowly as it approches its carrying capacity (K) - Per-capita rate of increase of the population decreases *linearly* with population size, from a maximum rate to a zero rate when the population reaches carrying capacity

Populations with lowlevel of isolation

- Populations with a level of isolation, even within islands can develop differences in their gene pool as a result of microevolution. - This can result in genetic structures different allele frequencies in different population

Moving in air

- Possibly safest but most challenging - Gravity wins; adaptations required to ensure lift - Strong wind currents; can end up in suboptimal environment - Extremely energy hungry - flying takes enormous muscles

Geographical Isolation

- Prevents reproduction and can enable agents of change to drive speciation (allopatric speciation) - Agents of change cause genetic divergence between populations through mutation, selection and genetic drift

Respiration

- Process by which an organism exchanges gasses between themselves and the environment

Genetic rescue

- Process where inbred populations receive genes from another population such that their overall genetic diversity increases - genetic rescue tries to solve the problem of inbreeding depression, where too many individuals mate with close relatives because the population is small - consequences of inbreeding depression are reduced biological fitness (fertility, survival, longevity, etc.)

Leaves

- Provide increased SA for photosynthesis and gas exchange - Evolved from modified branches that overlapped and flattened -Most important organ of vascular plants - Structure and diversity enormous depending on environment and niche

Drift

- Random changes in the relative abundances of different taxa within the community through time - - "Neutral processes" - If everything was equal drift will be only process impacting community dynamics. All but one species drift to extinction and initial frequency of each species and initial pop size affects which species dominate and how quickly

Mating systems

- Random mating - Non-random mating - Assortive Mating - Disassortive mating

Models of metapopulations

- Range from simple deterministic models, with strong assumptions about extinction and colonisation to more realistic stochastic models based on simulation that: - account or stochasticity in extinction and colonisation (similar to accounting for demographic stochasticity) - and for factors that affect extinction and colonization rates (environmental factors, patch characteristics)

Historic Mass Extinctions

- Rate of origination and rate of extinction determined by fossil record can be used to understand diversity and identify adaptive radiations and mass extinctions

Mating reproduction

- Recombination via meiosis - Sperm and egg - Change in allele composition - Novel offspring

Sickle cell anaemia (point mutation)

- Red blood cells are shaped like sickles and can die early and block blood flow which causes fatigue and pain

Climate Mitigation

- Refers to efforts to reduce or prevent emission of greenhouse gases. Mitigation can mean using new technologies and renewable energies, making older equipment more energy efficient, or changing management practices or consumer behavior. It can be as complex as a plan for a new city, or as a simple as improvements to a cook stove design

Climate Adaptation

- Refers to implementing changes in natural or human systems to prepare for actual or expected changes in the climate in order to minimize harm, act on opportunities or cope with the consequences

The anchosaurs - relationship between reptiles and birds

- Reptiles are adapted to reproduce without water - Belong to archosaurs ( along with dinosaurs and pterosaurs) HOWEVER - Archosaurs is not a monophyletic group (do not share a common ancestry) - Strictly speaking should include birds

Parental Care is costly

- Researches in Netherlands test effects of parental caregiving in Eurasian kestrels over 5 years - They transferred chicks among nests to produce reduced broods (three or four chicks), normal broods (five or six), and enlarged broods (seven or eight). They then measured the percentage of male and female parent birds that survived the following winter. (Both males and females provide care for chicks.) - The lower survival rates of kestrels with larger broods indicate that caring for more offspring negatively affects survival of the parents.

mycorrhizal network

- Resources and signals known to travel through a mycorrhizal network

Respiration in Plant Roots

- Roots have adaptations depending on oxygen environment - Aerial roots and Aerenchyma

Simpson's Index

- S = total number species - Pi = proportion for i th species - H = Shannon diversity index - D = Simpson's index

Shannon index

- S = total number species - Pi = proportion for i th species - H = Shannon diversity index - Hmax = maximum possible H if individuals completely evenly distributed among species

Does Camouflage work?

- Seen in natural variation in egg colour patterns and survival of nightjar eggs - High contrast plover eggs are less likely to survive than low contrast plover eggs - Nightjar eggs that better matched patters of their backgrounds during incubation more likely to survive than those that were a poor match

Forces impacting ecological communities

- Selection - Drift - Speciation/Diversification (more all encompassing) - Dispersal

Forces impacting Populations

- Selection - Genetic Drift - Mutation - Gene flow

Selection

- Selection of species - Can depend on traits - Selection = changes in community structure caused by non-random ("deterministic") fitness differences between taxa Selection pressure may be: • Constant • Density-dependent • Varies over space / time

Plot sampling technique

- Set plots randomly - Count within plots - Calculate average density - Extend estimate to whole area Precision depends on: - Number of plots - Variability in counts

Signals

- Signal is any act or structure that influences the behaviour of other organisms, and which evolved specifically because of that effect - Male and female fireflies flash 'lights' as a signal to indicate their location for mating - Fireflies create bioluminescene by combining two molecules inside a photic organ, the flashing part of the abdomen

Signal or cue has no 'intrinsic' meaning

- Signals and cues provide information - Must be recognisable; selection must favour the evolution of the sensory mechanisms that allow the signal or cue to be detected - Chemicals (signals and odours) transmit information; are over 3000 identified chemical components of insect pheromones. Yet specific moth and elephant species produce same pheromone that convey the same message

Signals are Effective only if they are Detected

- Signals may not reach receiver because they 'attenuate' as they travel through environment (more difficult to discern colour patters or hear sounds the further from the source) - Male Habronattus spiders have better chance of attracting mate if they signal on leaves than sand or rocks - background noise may also affect signals - aquatic waterboatmen can distinguish between waves and different sources

Examples of smaller changes within genome

- Single base changes (substitution) - DNA of different sizes is inserted/deleted (i deleted) in the middle of an existing sequence - If indel is not a multiple of 3 then it can lead to a frame shift - More common but often less genetic consequence

Excretion in Protists and Early Eukaryotes

- Single celled organisms have no specialised organs - Majority of waste and bioproducts of metabolism are eliminated by passive diffusion and osmosis - Active transport of waste occurs through specialised membrane channels and/or expelled directly

Physiological Costs of Signalling

- Size of electric discharge (y-axis) is positively correlated with energy consumed in electric fish - Male courtship drumming is more costly than moving or resting, and increases with both body size and number of drums (per minute)

Molluscs- Movement on land

- Slugs and snails move by rhythmic waves of muscular contraction on the underside of its foot - Secrete mucus to assist with movement - Mucus is particularly helpful on land

Micro-parasites

- Small and often intra-cellular. ' • Multiply directly within their host. • Often extremely numerous. (e.g. viruses, bacteria, protozoa).

Direct Diffusion

- Small animals (<1mm diameter) - Occurs across the outer membrane supplying oxygen to all cells - Larger animals can't use because it's difficult. Would not provide oxygen quickly enough

COVID-19 Spread

- Small genome; nucleic acid is RNA - Replicate via asexual reproduction - Replication is not accurate as in other life forms so mutations arise more rapidly - Mutations and mode of inheritance means we can trace and fingerprint each case - The person they caught it from will appear almost identical - Transmission to additional people will likely have more differences

Parental care - Foraging

- Social spider adults cooperate to subdue a wasp that is fed to smaller juvenile spiders - White winged choughs take over a year to learn complex foraging skills from adult carers

Dung Flies

- Some flies in genus scathophaga lay eggs in animal dung - Dung has decaying material that is a rich food source for growing offspring

Spores

- Some plants and fungi produce sexual spores - Helps with dispersal, surviving unfavourable conditions and genetic diversity

Disruptive selection example

- Specialist feeding - Population selected to be smaller, feed on particular food

Allopatric Speciation

- Speciation in different geographic locations

Biological Species Concept

- Species are groups of actually (or potentially) interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups

Narrow ecological niches

- Species are more vulnerable to extinction than those with broad nicehs - A narrow ecological niche means a species relies heavily on specific habitats or resources within an ecosystem.

Small geographic ranges

- Species have a higher risk of extinction than species which are widespread - Small ranges expose species to greater threat of habitat loss as the threatening process may occur across the entire range of the species - Catastrophic population declines may occur after severe events, such as fire, storms, floods etc

Slow reproductive rate

- Species have higher the risk of extinction than rapid breeders - Population growth rates may be too slow to counter a population in decline from threats E.g. the kakapo, a large, ground-dwelling parrot - Female kakapo lays 1-4 eggs per breeding cycle. Eggs hatch after 30 days. The female feeds the chicks for three months, and the chicks remain with the female for some months after fledging. Males and females start breeding between 5-9 years of age. Kakapo do not breed every year and has one of the lowest rates of reproduction among birds - Is critically endangered with only 209 adults confined to four islands off the coast of New Zealand

Photoautotrophs - Oxygenic

- Species use oxygen from water in photosynthesis and produce oxygen as a biproduct

Molluscs: Active Propulsion

- Squid, octopus, cuttlefish, nautilus (Cephalopods- marine molluscs) - Take in water through their mouths and then contract their body to push the water through their funnel thus achieving forward propulsion - Muscles assist in this process - Their tentacles can also aid in movement: control of direction and can act as pseudo-legs when not swimming (they can also assist when walking on land)

Penis Fencing

- Stab each other with their penises in order to inject sperm into their mate

Respiration in Plant Leaves

- Stomata (tiny openings allowing for gas exchange) - Present in sporophyte genus of all land plants (excluding liverworts) - Can open and close depending on plant condition and environment condition (CO2, light intensity, air temp, etc. - Low CO2 = reduction in size but increase in density

Challenges of Moving in Water

- Strong currents; may end up in suboptimal environments - Bouyancy - maintaining position requires energy and/or specialised structures - Water levels might fluctuate (evolution of land species)

Genetic Drift in Small populations

- Stronger evolutionary agent of change - Outcomes are more unpredictable - Probability of large changes is greater

Advantages of Moving in Water

- Support - Hydration - Desiccation (dehydration) not a problem - Nutrient Rich - Environmentally buffered

Abiotic changes in environment

- Temperature, humidity, sunlight (and altitude, longitude, and substrate for mobile organisms)

Biotic changes in environment

- Temporal and spatial variation in the abundance of food - Competitors - Natural enemies (predators, parasites, pathogens) - Reproductive partners

Epidemics can cause mass mortalities

- The Black Death affected Europe during the Late Middle Ages - The elderly, those who were impoverished, and those who had suffered relatively poor health faced higher risks of death during the epidemic than their younger, wealthier, and healthier peers - What happened after the epidemic? • Increased resources available to those that survived. • Population grew at a greater rate after the epidemic than before.

Host resistance

- The ability of a host to reduce the probability that it is infected, reduce pathogen replication within the host, and/or increase the speed of pathogen clearance (recovery)

Population distribution and influence on evolutionary process

- The area a population inhabits and density of individuals Agent of change - Gene flow can influence flow of genetic information between populations

Diversification

- The evolution of new lineages (including new genotypes, forms, varieties, sub-species and species) from existing lineages - New genetic variation - Can be slow process over geological time or rapid depending on organism and selection pressure - Affects at all levels

Dispersal

- The movement of individuals from one place to another, as propagules (seeds and spores), larvae, juveniles or adults • Immigrating \ emigrating • Source \ receiver (impact depend on size, location, and composition of both communities as well as interconnectedness) • One-way (large to small) • Linking local communities

Chemical Modality (olfaction)

- The oldest and taxonomically most widespread sensory channel - There must be physical interaction between odour and receptor. e.g. odour plumes emitted, pheromones intercepted by antennae, odour-receptor interactions, pheromones activate receptors

Population Ecology

- The scientific study of populations in relation to their environment. E.g. how biotic and abiotic factors influence abundance, dispersion and composition of populations - Can be a guide on how to conserve threatened spcies, control pests or manage harvested species.

Dispersal

- The spreading of individuals away from others - Can be divided in 3 phases: emigration/transfer/immigration - Organisms neeed resourceas and survival - May be forces favouring aggregation (e.g. indivs gather around a resource or for protection) and forces favouring separation (e.g. indivs moving away to avoid competition) - Often age and sex biased (young,males) - Can also affect its composition - Is particularly relevant in the context of invasions - Is key for metapopulations

Phylogenetics

- The study of evolutionary relationaships among biological organisms based on: - similarities in DNA - Knowledge of molecular clocks (rate that mutations occur) - Phenotypes : behaviour. anatomy - Fossil record can be used for calibration

Virulence-transmission trade-off hypothesis

- Theory predicts that parasites could evolve virulence (i.e., parasiteinduced reductions in host fitness) by balancing the transmission benefits of parasite replication with the costs of host death. - Virulence can change through time. Initially high, evolving towards intermediate virulence to ensure ongoing transmission - Parasite fitness is highest at an intermediate level of parasite replication, beyond which the cost of increased host mortality outweighed the benefit of increased transmission

Animal Sexual Reproduction

- There are many different ways -fusion of gametes -offspring are genetically unique -higher genetic diversity -adaptive to changing environments

Case Study: Hawaii

- Third of endagered birds are there - 113 only found in Hawaii, 71 haev become extinct, and 31 more are threatened - One cause if wetland loss

Ecological drift example frog ponds

- Through random processes changes species composition in place

Why do individuals move?

- To find food - A mate - Suitable habitat to live - Escape predators

Why does life require food?

- To maintain normal cellular function and replication to reproduce

Why does life respire?

- To release energy from food and fuel cellular processes

Why is it useful to define population?

- Track spread of disease - Track resistance (ex. insecticide) - Asses risk of inbreeding - Pest control (e.g. fox, feral cats) - Conservation - Monarch butterflies - Possible financial implications - Bioprospecting

Excretory Organs in animals : Invertebrates

- Transfer waste from coelom to exterior - Excretory organs increase in complexity from simple protonephridia to more complex nephridia and the *Malpighian Tubule system* (found in many insects and spiders) - In insects (also in birds and reptiles) , the hindgut is involved in both excretion and elimination; Nitrogen waste fist moves into it prior to excretion (usually mixed with faeces)

VHF Tracking

- Transmitter on animal sends VHF (radio) signal - Researcher picks signal with portable receiver and estimates position (multiple fixes, triangulation) - Need to be in some proximity of the animal

Satiellite Tracking

- Transmitter on animal sends radio signal - Satellites pick signal, estimate location, send date to researcher - Researcher does not need to be close to the animal

Seasonal Breeding

- Triggered by photoperiod, to match to availability of abundant resources

Heterotrophs

- Unable to make their own food - Found in all domains and kingdoms

Roots

- Underground organs of vascular plants - Support nutrient and H2O uptake from soil - Provide anchorage and support - Synthesis of plant hormones and storage of nutritional reserves - Can be modified (E.g. aerial roots, clasping roots, etc.)

Archaea

- Unicellular - Lack nuclei - Lack membrane bound organelles - Distinctive cell walls - Some autotrophs - Some heterotrophs

Bacteria

- Unicellular - Lack nuclei - Lack membrane bound organelles - Distinctive cell walls - Some autotrophs and some heterotrophs

Protista

- Unicellular OR multicellular - Cells with nuclei and membrane bound organelles - Some have cell walls - Some autotrophs/some heterotrophs - Hardest to classify - Usually aquatic

Pseudopods (false feet)

- Unicellular amoebae alter their cell shape by pushing cytoplasm outwards to produce pseudopodia (false feet) - Can have multiple pseudopodia projecting from the cell in different directions but can also use this to move in a particular direction - When food is in scarce supply, individual amoeba can aggregate to form a single travelling colony (either as multiple cells or congregating to form a single massive cell) - Some animal species (marine worms) have parapodia (leg like structures); these are paired appendages which are based on a comparable design to pseudopods (ie. fluid-filled and assist in movement) but they have nervous control

Environmental stochasticity

- Unpredictible fluctuation in environmental conditions in space and time -Resources and conditions that idividuals need to survive and reproduce are not constant. therefore birth and death rates (and growth rates) are not constant

Magnetoreception example

- Uses coiled and M11 funnel - scratching represents direction in terms of the magnetic field - Dunnocks fly from northern to southern europe during winter season - sunlight no effect, but interfering with magnetic cues shows they have no idea where they're going

Carnivorous Plants

- Venus Fly Trap - Captures nutrients from prey - Have a trapping structure usually triggered by tiny hairs on inner surfaces

Tape Worm - Parasitism

- Vertebrate gut parasites - Attach to intestinal lining via head structure - Feed by absorption through epidermis

Storage of waste: Plants

- Waste materials accumulate in vacuoles of aging cells - Can be stems, leaves or bark of trees - Cells eventually die and fall off plant - Important as it rids potentially toxic substances - Can me manipulated by humans - rubber and maple syrup

Mechanical modality

- Web building spiders use vibrations, transmitted along the flexible silk, to detect location and size of prey that are arrested by the web

Genetic Drift

- When alleles become more or less common simply by chance - There is always on element of randomness in determining which alleles are passed on by the parental population - Allele frequency changes via genetic drift results from 'sampling error' - Allele frequency of next-generation are influences by 'chance' number of individuals that breed and the alleles they have

Adaptive Radiation

- When evolutionary lineages undergo exceptionally rapid diversification into a variety of lifestyles or ecological niches - Most adaptive radiations involve exploitation of a new environmental niche in absence of competition

Multiple Threats

- When threats are additive, they can cause spectacular declines. - Passenger pigeons on the US prairies declined from a population of many billions in the early 1800s to extinct in the wild in 1901. - Decline was likely due to habitat loss plus overexploitation.

Brood Parasitism

- Where a female of one species lays her eggs in the nests of other species, who raise the 'parasitic' chick - Brood parasite avoids 'costs' of raising chicks, while the cost to host includes an energetically costly loss of reproductive output - Classic example of coevolution in the context of sensory information - Not very common (1% of bird species)

Passive Transport

- Where solutes cross the membrane without the involvement of a specific transport protein - Movement of solutes (proteins, amino acids, or other biproducts) occurs due to the chemical gradient of the solute and thus through osmosis and diffusion - Common in bacteria, fungi, and to some degree aquatic plants

After Bottlenecks

- Wide bottleneck - More individuals survive. If it retains same level of genetic diversity population can recover to original state - Tight bottleneck - Few individuals survive and makes changes to population - Chance of losing alleles after bottleneck or founder events depend on their initial frequency plus the new population size

Evolution of insect flight

- Wing stiff membrane of exoskeleton strengthened by veins - Most likely evolved from gills in aquatic forms - Traditionally thought wings evolved from structures that would help 'gliding' - Evidence from stoneflies suggests early wings aid locomotion across water surface

Electrical modality

- Works well in aquatic environments because electricity is more easily transported through water than air - Monotremes (echidna and platypus) use this sensory channel - Shark can detect location of the plaice (fish) even when it is constrained in the 'agar chamber'.

Wolves - Dissortative Mating

- Yellowstone National Park - Matings were between different coloured wolves, either gray mating with black

Worldviews

- a concept of the world held by an individual or a group

Temperature Response Curves in relation to fitness

- all organism tries to get to optimal temperature to be at optimal performance

The Paris Agreement

- an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dealing with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance starting in the year 2020. - goal is to limit the increase in global average temperatures to well below 2 degrees celsius above preindustrial levels

Micropredators

- attack several hosts, usually feeding on blood - Invertebrate examples include leeches, mosquitoes, flies, fleas and ticks - Vertebrates examples include lampreys, vampire bats and false cleaner fish

Autotrophs

- auto = self - trophs = nutrition - Not in fungi or animal kingdoms - Synthesise the food they require for life

Behavioural thermoregulation

- can move into shade, burrow, climb trees to cool off, etc. to cool off.

Indigenous Australian people's migration into the continent

- can track mitochondrial genome overtime - Mitogenome from hair samples collected from early European settlement - Locational info obtained at time of hair sample collection - Temporal molecular clock (mutation rates) calibrated with archaelogical data

Individual as thermodynamic system

- energy goes into and out of individual in many different forms - convection is energy lost to air and wind - heat can be gained/loss through conduction with ground 1. temperature 2. breathing 3. water 4. feeding

Pattern of organism

- feeding - assimilation (digestion) - growth - maintenance - development (maturation) - reproduction

Climate change impacts

- greatest at the poles especially north. overall changing to become hotter - more specialists in low latitude areas (along equator) and more generalists in high latitude areas

endothermic

- heated from within the body - can elevate metabolic rate to keep warm - has a minimum level of energy turnover to survive (cannot go below that level) (usually 10x higher than ectotherm) - able to sweat but sometimes gets too hot that it can't keep up or can lead to desiccation - some mammals do have the ability to drop body temperature to save energy and water by being in state of torpor

Earth Summit '92

- held in Rio 1992 - Created so member states could cooperate together internationally on development issues in post cold war. - international collaboration been v important as issues cannot be solved through one nation bound countries to commitments including Convention on Biological Diversity and framework convection on climate change (UNFCCC) and UN effort to combat desertification - Convention led to requirement of countries have to develop national environment diversity strategy and action plans which need to be reported on every 5 yrs - Also led to Global strategy for plant conservation, Nagoya protocol (fair access to genetic resources) and Cartegena protocol (protect nature from GMOs) and the Strategic plan for biodiversity (2011-2020) setting out targets called Aichi targets. - Aichi Target 12: "...by 2020 the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained" (CBD 2010) - Sustainable Development Goals - 15.5 Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species

3rd type of growth rate

- in between growth types 1 and 2. - relationship between metabolic rate and how it changes size in growth curve

Invasive species

- include pest animals, plants and diseases - Impact populations via predation, competition for space and resources, or by causing mortality through toxicity - Since European settlement there have been devastating effects on Australia's terrestrial mammal fauna - 22 species of native mammals have gone extinct from Australia and 100 spp. are threatened. - 10% of mammal fauna are now made up of invasive species

Migration and Barriers

- influence connectivity between population and the extent of gene flow between population

Parasitoids

- insects which eventually kill their hosts - Most parasitoids are hymenopterans, parasitoid wasps; others include dipterans such as phorid flies. - Parasitoids either 1) sting their large prey, carry it to a nest and lay an egg on top which hatches and feeds on the prey, or 2) lay their eggs directly into the host. The eggs hatch and grow in the living host, eventually emerging from the host.

Ecosystems

- interactions between living and non-living components

Stochasticity

- is equal to randomness - A process is stochastic if it cannot be predicted accurately - E.g. roll of a dice (can predict frequency of events but not their order) - Opposite term is deterministic (no randomness involved) -

Dispersial example frog ponds

- larger species thriving in landscape and reproducing v successfully - Individuals of this species is dispersing all over landscape and colonising different ponds - Overtime more of that species is present

temperature tolerance

- major issue of being too hot or too cold is related to effects on enzymes and cell membranes - temperature affects shape of enzymes that makes it suitable - temperature too hot causes denaturation - some enzymes also dependent on how fluid cell membranes are

IPBES Global Assessment

- objective is to allow us to understand how we're tracking against our global commitments - They found that Nature underpins all aspects of life but its capacity to do is declining everywhere 1. 2 bill. ppl rely on wood as primary energy 2. 4 bill people rely primarily on natural medicines 3. 70% of all drugs are natural or copies of natural drugs 4. 75% of all crops are animal pollihnated 5. Natural systems are the ONLY carbon sink (5.6 Gt/yr) 6. Natural pollinators = $560B/yr - "Goals for conserving and sustainably using nature cannot be met under current trajectories... only transformative change will allow goals to be met by 2030". (IPBES 2019)

Indigenous Worldview

- people are embedded in the world around them. There is no divide between "nature" and culture. - "This ground is mother. This ground, she's my mother. She's mother for everybody. We born top of this ground. This [is] our mother. That's why we worry about this ground" - This worldview considers the environment along a continuum

Plants and Animals Threatened with Extinction calculated

- percentage threatened x number of species = number threatened

2nd type of growth curve

- shows rapid rise in exponential growth and then a sudden stop in growth - seen in insects. growth stop when insect undergoes final molt or at point of metamorphosis

temperature tolerance of cane toads

- survival: 5 - 40 degrees Celsius - breeding: water temp 25-30 degrees Celsius - sodium potassium pumps stop at lower than 5 degrees - above 40 degrees structures of enzymes unravel and denature leading to irreversible damage

Realised niche

- the actual conditions and resources in which a species exists due to biotic interactions. Reasons include: • Competition • Dispersal limitations • Disturbances • Stochasticity

Field Metabolic Rate

- the amount of energy used per unit of time by an organism under normal conditions of life in a natural ecosystem - can be measured with coating technique called doubly labelled water where organism is captured and injected with heavy water. this water can be tracked so you can catch same animal again, take blood sample and see how much labelled water has been diluted giving indirect measure of energy used and amount of water turned over in animal

Standard metabolic rate

- the metabolic rate of an ectotherm at rest at a specific temperature animal is: - not moving - not digesting - at known temperature - in its inactive phase - an adult - not reproducing

basal metabolic rate

- the rate at which heat is produced by an individual in a resting state for endothermic animals conditions required for bmr by animal: - is not moving - animal is not digesting - is in its thermoneutral zone (not feeling cold) - is in its inactive phase - is an adult - is not reproducing

metabolic rate

- use indirect 'calorimetry' or gas measurement to measure metabolic rate

Examples of metapopulations

- à Glanville Fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia), inhabiting meadows in the Aland Islands in Finland

Trophically transmitted parasites

-Are eaten by hosts - When eaten, they survive digestion and mature into their adult form. - They often have complex life cycles with one or more intermediate hosts. - They include trematodes (all except schistosomes), cestodes, acanthocephalans, pentastomids, many round worms, and many protozoa - have complex life cycles involving hosts of two or more species. - They can alter intermediate host behaviour so they have a greater chance of being eaten

Diffusion and Phagocytosis

-Diffusion is movement of nutrients through cell membrane (Dom/King. Bacteria) - Phagocytosis - Engulfing items of food or prey. Evolved specialised structures or cells to assist. Within Protista: Amobea and Animalia: Sponges - Disadvantages of both is that they are unlikely to support larger or more complex species

Integumentary Exchange

-Some animals (e.g. earth worms and amphibians) use skin as gas exchange surface

Animal Lungs

1. Amphibians - Sac like lung 2. Birds - Parallel series of tubes called parabronchi. Air sacs inflated/deflated. NOT LUNGS 3. Reptiles - Vary but tend to be sac like, sometimes subdivided 4. Mammals - Branching lungs that terminate in alveoli - Some animals breathe through their butt e.g. sea cucumbers, fitzroy river turtles

Stabilising Population Examples

1. Bird clutch size 2. Birth weight of human species 3. Number of fingers 4. Camouflage to match environment

Properties of Populations

1. Boundaries 2. Size/Density 3. Distribution 4. Structure

Four possible stages of respiration

1. Breathing 2. Gas exchange 3. Circulation 4. Cellular Respiration ** not all animals use all 4

Checking if frequencies match expectations

1. Calculate allele frequencies using population genotypes 2. Use Handy-Weinberg equation to calculate expected genotype frequencies (null hypothesis) 3. Apply Chi-squared test 4. Check to see if x^2 value is significant

Heterotrophs Types

1. Carnivores 2. Insectivores 3. Herbivores 4. Omnivores 5. Scavengers - Eat remains of foods left by others 6. Detritivores - Eat decaying organic matter

Autotrophs Types

1. Chemoautotrophs 2. Photoautotrophs

Structures evolved to facilitate active movement in water

1. Cilia and flagella 2. Feet like projections/structures 3. Fins and flippers (birds and mammals)

Bottleneck Implications

1. Conservation - Fragmented population will continue to lose genetic diversity via drift 2. Speciation - Population that stop exchanging alleles and continue to differentiate due to genetic drift and/or die to other agents of change may eventually become a different species

Types of Sexual Reproduction

1. Dioecious vs Monecious/hermaphrodites (sex parts) 2. Internal vs External Fertilisation 3. Oviparous vs. Viviparous -> laying of eggs 4. Few offspring vs.

Different types of gas exchange in animals

1. Direct diffusion 2. Integumentary exchange 3. Trachea 4. Gills 5. Lungs

Evolution of Teeth Cast Studies

1. Dragon fish - Have space between brain case and vertebrae allowing to eat big prey - Dragonfly larvae can also eat big prey due to hinged mouthparts folded away

Big five mass extinctions

1. End Ordovician 2. Late Devonian 3. End Permian 4. End Triassic 5. End Cretaceous

What is life?

1. Exchange of Energy, matter and information 2. Individuals are special- goal - directed

Reproductive behaviours

1. Fecundity; how many offspring are produced per reproductive episode 2. Age at maturity; when reproduction begins 3. Semelparity vs iteroparity; single vs multiple reproductive events

Types of Asexual Reproduction

1. Fission 2. Budding 3. Fragmentation and Regeneration 4. Vegetative Propagation 5. Spore Formation 6. Parthenogenesis

The Evil Quartet

1. Invasive Species 2. Habitat loss and fragmentation 3. Co-extinctions 4. Over exploitation

Micro evolution 'Agents of Change'

1. Natural Selection 2. Mutation - Ultimate source of variation 3. Seasonal Reproduction - Recombination of genes, mate choice 4. Genetic Drift - Changes to allele frequencies based on chance 5. Gene flow - Migration, movement and hybridisation

Allele Frequency Equilibrium Requirements

1. No migration 2. No mutation 3. Equal fitness (no selection) 4. Infinite population size 5. Mating is random Under these conditions H.W. Equilibrium will not change

Autotrophs: Ingenious Adaptations to get food

1. Parasitic Plants 2. Carnivorous Plants 3. Symbiotic Legumes 4. Symbiotic Autotrophic Algae

Reproductive Barriers

1. Pre-mating isolation - geographical isolation - behavioural isolation 2. Pre-zygotic Isolation - Mating time differences - Ecological differences 3. Post-zygotic Isolaton - Fertilised egg/offspring inviable

Action in order to help with conservation in Australia

1. Private protected areas; includes feral cat and fox control, fire management, feral herbivore control, weed control and predator proof fences 2. Nature-friendly agriculture; includes sustainable farming practices, ~60% of Australia's land mass is used for agriculture in some form, Impact investment 3. Indigenous land management; make up 44% of total protexted area. largest in Australia and makes up almost 8.7% of total Australia. 4. Community action 5. Science and innovation

Ecosystem Services Components

1. Provision - the resources we use 2. Regulation - climate regulation - from vegetation and compounds in atmosphere 3. Support - Allow ecosystem to opperate 4. Culture - How we interact with environment

How do we date fossils?

1. Relative dating - Stratigraphy; can be used to order layers of rock from older to more recent at a single location - Index fossils; fossils with known date, can be used to date other unknown fossils if found together 2. Absolute dating: - Radiometric dating methods - based on decay of certain elements (e.g. carbon) can be used to date fossils - Different elements are used depending on time scale

Animal Markings

1. Some animals already have natural markings e.g. tiger stripes, scars and pigmentation in dorsal fins in dolphins, belly spots in great crested newts 2. Artificial marks - Leg bands - Ear tags - Dyes - PIT tags (small chips that carry a code and are inserted into body of animal) 3. Batch markings vs. Individual marking 4. Invasiveness of marks (ethics; assumptions method). Non invasive genetic methods for marking include scat or hair samples

Excretion in Plants: 3 key mechanisms

1. Transpiration 2. Storing 3. Diffusion

Cichlid Fish

1. Unparalleled degree of phenotypic and taxonomic diversity has arisen in sympatry - new species without geographical barriers 2. Speciation has occurred through macrohabitat adaptation and specialisation. Mate preference traits (often colour) can cause disruptive selection 3. Adaptive Radiation: Very rapid evolution of many species through adapting to underutilised ecological niches

Radio-tracking

1. VHF Tracking 2. Satiellite Tracking 3. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)

Principles of Natural Selection

1. Variation - Individuals within population differ in appearance, behaviour or physiology 2. Heredity - Offspring resemble their parents more than unrelated individuals 3. Selection - Seom forms are more successful at reproducing in particular environments

Scale in biology

1. molecular (nanometer) - e.g. dna transcription 2. molecular (micrometer) - e.g. cell 3. Individual (micrometer to metre) 4. Population (mm to km) 5. Community (mm to km) 6. Ecosystem (mm to km)

1st type of growth curve

1. shows gradually decreasing rate of growth and ultimately heads towards asymptotic maximum - followed by many animals including mammals, reptiles and fish

Early adaptions that facilitate active movement

3 main adaptations in prokaryotes and eukaryote protists 1. Cilia - tiny hairs covering outside of cell 2. Pseudopods (false feet) move in specific directions 3. Flagella - Longer hair like structure that is propelled around (like a helicopter blade)

Global Drivers of Climate Change

75% of the land area is significantly altered; 66% of the ocean area is experiencing increasing cumulative impacts; 85% of wetland area has been lost Half the live coral cover on coral reefs has been lost since 1870 - loss accelerating Marine plastic pollution increased tenfold since 1980 32 million hectares of primary or recovering tropical forest were lost between 2010 and 2015

Learned

A behaviour modified as result of animal's experience of its environment - digger wasp circles around entrance of her nest, before leaving to search for food to provision her larvae. she cannot find entrance to nest if the landmarks are experimentally moved. - Paternal care in digger wasps involve female laying eggs in nest in-ground and bringing food to larvae

Innate

A behaviour performed the first time an animal encounters the cue or signal appropriate for behaviour - very shortly after hatching, cuckoo chick ejects eggs of its foster parents - learning is not possible. they are brood parasites, exploiting to care for their offspring. chick is raised by foster parents of another species

Global Climate Scenarios

A climate scenario refers to a plausible future climate that has been constructed for explicit use in investigating the potential consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Such climate scenarios should represent future conditions that account for both human- induced climate change and natural climate variability

Ecological species concept

A concept positing that species are sets of organisms that are adapted to a particular set of resources, that is, to the same ecological niche

Metacommunity

A group of local communities occupying a set of habitat patches that are linked by the dispersal of multiple, potentially interacting species

community

A group of potentially interacting species that occur together in space and time

Predators

Animals that capture and eat other animals

Postzygotic Isolation

A post zygotic reproductive barrier is an aspect of the genetics, behaviour, physiology or ecology of a species that prevents hybrid zygotes from successfully developing and reproducing themselves

Coevolution

A process involving pairs of species (or lineages) wheeby changes in traits of individuals of one species causes reciprocal changes in the other species over evolutionary time

Ecosystem collapse

A transformation of identity, a loss of defining features, and/or replacement by a different exosyste,

Herbivores

Animals that consume plants / plant parts

M*n preventing females from mating by interfering with female signalling

Accessory gland proteins (Acp) - The ejaculate of male Drosophila includes Acps, of which the sex peptide (SP) reduces female receptivity and thus protect paternity Sierra dome spiders: - Females place a pheromone in their webs to attract males; attracted males destroy her web before courtship

Coelom absent

Acoelomate

Cnidarians: Active propulsion

Adult Jellyfish (free-swimming form of Cnidarians) - Move through the water by expanding and contracting their bell shaped bodies to push water behind them - Muscles assist in this process - An incredibly energy efficient means of moving in water - They congregate in large masses or blooms to obtain good nutrients and prey

Population Structure Agent of Change

Agent of Change - Mating (random vs. non-random) - can affect population structure and influence effective population size (Ne)

y-maze olfactometer

Air passes from top through two chambers (one with drop of alarm pheromone) and spider moves up from base of Y-maze.

Chordates

All chordates have - Notochord; structure that runs along back - Dorsal nerve chord; above notochord - Myomeres; segmented muscles Early chordates including fish have gill slits and post-anal tail aiding movement

Genotype

Allele composition of an individual or a cell (single gene or entire genome)

Allele

Alternate forms of a gene (DNA sequence)

Life Table

An age-specific summary of the survival pattern of a population To build a life table: - Usually follow the fate of a cohort (group of individuals of same age) from birth to death - We determine the proportion of the cohort that survives from one age group to the next - Number of offspring produced in each age group also monitered

Liver

An important organ breaking down many substances in blood, including toxins, and assists with breakdown of red blood cells

endotherm

An organism that is generates heat to raise body temperature above ambient

Parasite

An organism that obtains its nutrients from a host or very few hosts, normally causing harm to the host but not necessarily causing death

Vector

An organism which carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another organism

Labrum

An unpaired median structure overhanging the other mouthparts like a lip

Excrete can be traded for security

Ant - Aphid mutualism - Some species of ants farm aphids - Ants protect aphids from potential predators - Ants are 'paid' with honeydew release from the alimentary canals of the aphid - The ants 'milk' the aphids by stroking them with their antennae - Aphids change the amount of concentration of honeydew in response to the ants presence

signal or cue? example

Ant pheromone - Signal for other ants - Cue for adult butterflies for mating and oviposition - Cue for spiders to locate webs where butterflies search - Larvae of some lycaenid butterflies are tended by ants, which protect the larvae from natural enemies

Ligand

Any molecule that bonds specifically to a receptor site of another molecule.

Pathogen

Any parasite that causes a disease

Kidney

Are primary excretory organ of vertebrates although various other organs assist with solute and water regulation

Ecosystem Services

Are the benefits provided to humans through the transformations of resources (or environmental assets, including land, water, vegetation and atmosphere) into a flow of essential goods and services e.g. clean air, water, and food

Impacts of Carbon Emissions

Atmosphere - Greenhouse warming - Increased storm frequency/severity Ocean - Acidification - Warmer water temperatures - Sea level rise Land - Some increased plant growth, but limited - Forest fires - Melting permafrost

Molars

Back teeth that grind food

Objective methods

Based on data Pattern analysis • association • classification • ordination

Conservation of single species

Benefits: - A tangible target - Conceptually simple - Charismatic species can engage people with nature conservation Limitations: - Expensive - Risky - Problem of conserving a species that has no viable habitat

Conservation of ecological communities

Benefits: - Can target many species at the same time - More efficient use of resources - Captures non‐charismatic species and important inter‐specific relationships Limitations: - Requires protection of land/space - Communities can be subject to multiple threats

Geographical scales

Bogong moth • Larval stage: plains of NSW & QLD • Adults: migrate > 1,000 km to the alpine zone • Important food species for mountain pygmy possum - Bogong months numbers have been declining causing catastrophic effects in the Australian Alps

Hyphae

Branching filamentous (threadlike) structure that are main mode of vegetative growth in fungi

Measuring movement

Broadly three types of approaches: - Individual marking and observation - Using tracking technology - Analysing "intrinsic markers"

Examples of metapopulations in aquatic environments

Can also find metapopulation in species inhabiting discrete water bodies (lakes, ponds...) • Amphibian populations connected by seasonal dispersal through the landscape • Plant/invertebrate populations may be connected as birds transport propagules between waterbodies

Facultive anaerobic bacteria

Can grow without oxygen but use it if present

Measuring community patterns in space

Can look at structure/main identifying species and environmental relationships - Hard to recreate and repeat data among different observers therefore not favoured in science

Obligate anaerobic bacteria

Cannot survive in oxygen environment

Obligate aerobic bacteria

Cannot survive without oxygen

Founder Effect

Caused by a small number of individuals founding a new population. Random differences in allele frequency occur when a small colony splits from a large population

Cichlids Phylogenetic species concept

Cichlids can occasionally hybridise with close or even distant relatives

improvement in maps statistics

Classify and predict in one step

Coelom present

Coelomate

Why is it useful to define a species?

Conservation ; categorising endagered species Food; Classifying fruits and veg Safety; distinguishing between similae non harmful and harmful species Medical; diagnosing and treating infections (bacteria and viruses) Recreational; implementing catch limits when fishing

Types of Mechanisms that limit population growth

Density independent - Any force that affect the growth of a population regardless of density of the population - Mean adult abundance through time would be no different for the different densities - Often abiotic such as fires and droughts Density Dependent - Factors that affect the growth of a population differently depending on the density of the population - Often biotic

To what extent are animal and plant populations affected by parasitism and disease?

Depends on: • pathogen virulence • whether the pathogen reduces host survival (death rate), reproduction (birth rate), or both

Relative fitness (w)

Describes the success of a genotype at producing new individuals. Is standardised by success of other genotypes in population and ranges from 0 to 1.0 - w = 1 means fittest genotype

life cycle

Different stages of development - egg, juvenile, adult - metamorphosis (larva, pupa) - haploid / diploid stages

Disturbance can drive changes in ecological communities

Disturbance - : a discrete event that disrupts the structure of an ecological community, changing resource availability and/or the physical environment - Natural disturbances include bushfires, floods, cyclones, volcanic activity, disease - Human‐generated disturbances include habitat clearing, urban development, pollution

Directly transmitted parasites

Do not require a vector to reach their hosts. They include parasites of vertebrates such as lice, mites, copepods, amphipods, monogeneans; and many species of nematodes, fungi, protozoans, bacteria, and viruses.

Classification (KPCOFGS)

Domain Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species

Semelparity - one-time reproducers e.g.

E.g. Pacific salmon desert agave - grows in harsh environments

Behavioural isolation

E.x. Courtship calling - 3 related species of lacewings with different call types Selection for different mating signals creates reproductive isolation in the same (sympatric) population

Age at maturity / Reproduction Strategies

Early reproduction strategy - short-lived, small in body size. Strategy is geared towards early energy going toward reproduction rather than growth - Reduces the risk of not reproducing at all Late reproduction strategy - long-lived, larger in body size. Strategy is geared toward putting energy into growth to a larger size where mortality rates are lower, then later in life insetting energy in reproduction - Often a strategy that allows significant parental care of offspring - Strategy carries a higher risk of not reproducing at all or to maximum capacity if death occurs early

Eavesdropping

Eavesdropper - An unintended receiver that detects and uses signals of others for their own benefit - May be a competitor or natural enemy (predators or parasites)

Sound frequency modality

Echolocation - Objects in space are located by directing sounds at them and detecting the echoes - The longer the time interval until the echo is detected, the farther away the object - Bat sonar operates at frequenceis of 20-200kHz (ultrasonic). Humpback whale songs are in the 20-24kHz range and can be transmitted over many thousands of kilometers

Motion Masquerade

Explanation - Movement improves crypsis and thus reduces likelihood of predation - Individuals will start swaying when they detect changes in wind pressure

Logistic vs Exponential

Exponential - Population grows Exponentially No limiting factors slowing it down ex.) bacteria, small insects (reproduce rapidly) Logistic - When population growth slows/stops after exponential growth ex.) elephants/humans (reproduce slowly)

Challenges of bringing hets together (ewww)

External Fertilisation - Requires sperm and eggs to find each other Internal Fertilisation - Requires sperm and egg carrying individuals to find each other Signals, indicating location and receptivity, are required to bring the sexes (or gametes) together . Can also act as cues to alert natural enemies

Key characteristics of threatened species populations

Extinction Risk - Small population size; possible allee effects and low genetic diversity - Small geographic ranges - Slow growing and reproducing - Narrow ecological niches

Modes of reproduction that remove the hassle with sex

Facultive parthenogenesis - Females are able to produce viable eggs irrespective of whether mating has taken place Hermaproditism - Organisms have complete or partial reproductive organs and produces gametes normally associated with both male and female sexes

Disruptive Selection

Favours individuals at either end of the distribution

Stabilising Selection

Favours individuals in middle of distribution of phenotypes present in a population (e.g. by acting against individuals at either extreme)

Directional Selection (Positive Selection)

Favours individuals on one end of the distribution of phenotypes (e.g. small fish have higher fitness than large fish)

Fecundity and parental investment

Fecundity - Organisms's reproductive capacity Parental investment - The energetic investment into each offspring - Quantity vs quality tradeoff between # of offspring and paren't energetic investment in the individual offspring - Organisms can have many offspring each with a small energy investment, or few offspring each with a large energy investment

Predation

Feeding of one organism on another

Angiosperm Parts

Female Parts - Carpel -> stigma, style, ovary - Ovules - Petal - Sepal Male Parts - Stamen -> pollen, filament, anther

Degree of Freedom

For allele data, degrees of freedom = n - 1 - n = no. of alleles

Phenotype

Form or character of an individual

External Digestion

Fungi - Feed by absorption of nutrients from environment - Hyphae grow through substrates. Secrete digestive enzymes which break down substrate Insect Species (King: Animalia Phylum:Anthropod) - House flies - Tastes food with its feet - Sponge like mouth parts that suck up liquid. Unable to chew larger food - Excretes enzymes to digest food

Prezygotic Isolation

Genetic, behavioural, physiological, or ecological aspect preventing sperm from one species from fertilising eggs of another species (zygote = fertilised egg)

Threats to threatened species

Globally (100000+) - Around the world the top two impacts on threatened species are habitat loss and change due to agriculture, closely followed by overexploitation activities, such as hunting or timber harvesting Australia (1500+) The top factors impacting Australia's threatened species are invasive species and changes in habitat.

Population

Group of individuals of a single species living in the same general areas. - Members rely on the same resources, are influenced by similar environmental factors and are likely to interact and breed with one another

Population

Group of organisms that interact (same place and same time) and share genetic information (interbreed and produce viable offspring)

Non random mating

Has probability bias

Keystone predator

Has such an important role in the community that it helps to define the community. If it is removed, the community will be drastically different, or cease to exist.

heterothermic

Having body temperature that varies with the environment

Pair of mandibles

Heavily sclerotised (i.e. hardened) with toothed edges for cutting and crushing food

Red list of Ecosystems

Helps to identify whether or not ecosystems are trending towards collapse

Evolution of Teeth

Homodonts - All teeth same shape Typical of non - mammalian vertebrates Heterodonts - Variety of tooth shape - Mammals - Have incisors, canines, premolars and molars Teeth further modified depending on ecology - Predators - herbivores - Bark scraping

Disease

If an infection causes symptoms in the host, then the host has a disease

Competitive exclusion

If two species compete for the same limited resource, one will dominate in the long term

Metapopulation dynamics

In a 'classic' metapopulation 1. Suitable habitat only found in discrete patches 2. Subpopulations have a risk of extinction 3. Patches can be recolonised 4. Dynamics of subpopulations largely independent (i.e. not synchornous; driven by local factors.). So that when on subpopulation goes extinct, others are thriving and can generate dispersers to recolonise the empty habitat patches. Correlated extinctions (driven by regional factors) can sharply reduce the expected persistence time of the system

Quantifying aspects of populations

Include: - Estimating size of pop. - Monitoring fecundity and survival - Monitoring movement

Major Evolutionary Transition

Include: - New units of reproduction - Division of labour/cooperation - Development of more complex units

Adaptive introgression

Inheritance of beneficial variation from related species that accelerate adaption to, and survival in new environments e.g. sunflowers, adaptation flower timing either early or late. Wolves and dogs adaptation: camouflage

Molecular Genetics

Involves study of DNA sequences encoding specific genes to understand function

Labium

Is formed by the fusion of a pair of appendages. Jointed labial palps are used to taste and feel food

Ground Finch

Island: Daphne Major - Medium ground finch live entire lives on island - Few plant species - producing hard or soft seeds that birds eat - Population shows variation - Large beaks open larger, hard seeds faster and smaller beaks are better at smaller seeds VARIATION - Beak size Heredity - Offspring resemble parents SELECTION - Environmental Conditions - Strong selection pressure: 1977 drought - Conditions favoured larger beaks

Climate Impacts in Australia

KEY MESSAGES FOR SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA - Average temperatures will continue to increase in all seasons - More hot days and warm spells - Fewer frosts - A continuation of the trend of decreasing winter rainfall - Spring rainfall decreases - Increased intensity of extreme rainfall events - Mean sea level will continue to rise and height of extreme sea-level events will also increase - A harsher fire-weather climate in the future

Observing drift using experimental evolution by Buri (1956)

Key conclusions - Allele frequency change with each successive generation - One allele can reach a frequency of 1 - Cannot predict which allele will be fixed/lost

Life cycle

Lengths of Generations - Several generations per year - One generation per year (annual) - One generation over several years (perennnial) Repeated reproduction 1. Interoparous Specious - indivs that breed multiple times; resources during breeding dedicated to future survival - e.g. common groundsel or common field grasshopper 2. Semelparous Species - single reproductive event; no resources dedicated to future survival; reproduction followed quickly by death - e.g. wheat and other grain cops or gypsy moths

Phylogeography

Looks at evolutionary histories considering geographic distribution through fossil records and other evidence and interprets this at landscape level

Eusocial insects - Extraordinarily cooperative care

Major defining features: i) Cooperative care of young - Involving more indiv. than just mother ii) Sterile casts - Help in nest maintenance and raising offspring, but cannot themselves reproduce iii) Overlappiong generations - Such that mother, adult offspring and larval offspring are alive at the same time.

Macro evolution

Major evolutionary changes among large taxonomic groups (at or above species level) over long periods of time

Incomplete dominance

Makes new phenotype - E.g. black + white mouse = brown mouse

Male - male competition

Males have armaments that are used in contests (may also signal fighting ability

Annelids: Adapted for movement on land and in water

Marine worms - Free-swimming and sedentary (don't move often) - Have unjointed leg-like 'parapodia' on every body segment - Trocophore larvae - free swimming ciliated larvae Earthworms - Mostly terrestrial - live in soil (feed on organic matter) - Can grow very long - React to vibrations when longitudinal muscles contract, circular muscles relax and vice versa. Chaetae at back release and at front pull forward.

Migration

Mass directional movement of a large number of individuals of a species from one location to another

Eavesdropping - Social alarm pheromones

Meat ants - Widespread across Australia with huge colonies - Displaying ants release an alarm pheromone that recruits other ants. - Habronestes spider are found where ants are displaying and easily captures displaying ants. - Spiders are attracted to alarm pheromone

Natural Selection

Mechanism that can lead to evolution whereby phenotypic differences among a population cause some of them to survive and reproduce more effectively than others.

Endemic parasites can suppress populations

Micro- and macro-parasites that don't kill their prey can affect: 1. Birth rates 2. Death rates, via increased predation 3. Movement (immigration and emigration)

Co-dominance

Mixes two phenotypes together - Black + white mouse = a black and white mouse

Mutations in regulatory regions of genes

Mutations in regulatory regions of genes may affect expression either through: - No change in expression - Increase/decrease abundance of RNA molecules - Presence or absence in tissues or cell

Herbivory & Australian vegetation

Native herbivores: • wombat, kangaroos, bettongs, possums... • grasshoppers, beetles, termites.. Introduced: • Cattle, goats, camels, deer, rabbits.. - Change composition and structure - Increase cover - Increase exotic weeds - Decrease plant species richess

Future Forests Planning for Nature Based Solutions in the suburbs

No Policy change Trees: 14,890 Canopy Cover: 16% Diversity: High species Stormwater: 5,860 m3/year Habitat: low Air Quality: 0.9 t/year GHG sequestration: 60 t/year GHG storage: 4000 Climate Retrofit Trees: 30,650 Canopy Cover: 44% Diversity: High species & size Stormwater: 14,070 m3/year Habitat: medium Air Quality: 2.4 t/year GHG sequestration: 135 t/year GHG storage: 9660 Re-Wild Trees: 27,190 Canopy Cover: 28% Diversity: High age & structural Stormwater: 9,830 m3/year Habitat: high Air Quality: 1.6 t/year GHG sequestration: 107 t/year GHG storage: 5340 Health & Wellbeing Trees: 29,000 Canopy Cover: 29% Diversity: High size Stormwater: 10,060 m3/year Habitat: medium Air Quality: 1.7 t/year GHG sequestration: 99 t/year GHG storage: 5310

Intrinsic Markers

Origin of individuals may be identified by looking at: - Stable isotopes - Genetic markers - Trace elements - Species assemblages of parasites

Cichlids Ecological species concept

Palm Tree - Different soil types affecting flowering time

Respiration

Passes by which organism exchanges gasses between self and environment

Leaf Rolling Caterpillar

Perils of Accumulating Waste - Roll themselves into the leaf - Protected caterpillar and was a constant source of food - Faeces build up in leaf - A particular wasp has senses to detect smell of faeces - Lays eggs in caterpillar and caterpillar dies Adaptism - Caterpillar evolved in anal plate (adapted from cuticle) - Plate has small trigger released when waste builds up - Literally fires faeces out of leaf

Endemic disease

Persist for long times in populations, showing relatively little fluctuation in prevalence

Costs to signalling

Physiological - Drain on resources during growth (often visual signals) or during immediate production of signal (movement or sounds/vibrations) Exploitation - Signals (or cues) may be intercepted by an unintended receiver (predator or parasite)

Cichlids Biological species concept

Platypus - Egg laying mammal (monotreme) Cichlid - Reproductive isolation is usually incomplete between sister taxa. Many species can be crossed in the lab. Occasional wild hybrid specimens observed

Allee effect via mate limitation

Pollination example - Tree has typical dispersal range for its pollen. When trees are clustered and population size is large, polination occurs. Habitat loss causes pop decline making trees less clustered. Many trees no longer able to be pollinated as they are too distant from their neighbours.

Positive Density-Dependence

Population growth rate decreases because the population is too small

Negative Density Dependence

Population growth rate decreases due to population being too crowded

Parasitic castrators

Reduce or remove their host's reproductive ability and use the energy that would have gone into host reproduction for parasite growth. The host survives and sustains the parasite.

Camouflage

Reduces likelihood that an organism will be detected or recognised

homeothermic

Refers to an organism's ability to maintain a constant body temperature despite great variations in environmental temperature.

homeothermic endotherm

Refers to an organism's ability to maintain a constant body temperature despite great variations in environmental temperature.

Fitness

Refers to success of an organism at surviving and reproducing thus contributing offspring to future generations

Excretion

Removal of 'waste' products by an organism - Regulates internal environment in 3 ways: 1. Controls cell/body water content 2. Maintenance of solute composition 3. Enables organism to get rid of metabolic waste products and other unwanted substances - Products can be liquids, solids and gasses

Balancing Selection Example

Sickle Cell anemia - Severity of malaria increases frequency of gene and rate of elimination of sickle cell genes in individuals dying of sickle-cell anemia

Signals are strtegic and efficacious

Signaling Strategy - Bright colouration reveals toxicity and thus reduces likelihood of predation Signaling efficiency - Same info, different impact

Distinguishing between signals and cues

Signals - Evolved as vehicle for information - Selection favours greater distinctiveness in the signal and greater ability of receiver to detect it Cues - Has not evolved as vehicle for information but provides useful info to receiver - Selection may favour greater detection abilities in receiver, but will not act on the cue, unless it disadvantages the source of the cue

Artificial selection

Similar to natural selection, but it results from human activity. When breeders non-randomly choose individuals with economically favoured traits to use as breeding stock, they impose strong artificial selection on traits

Sinks

Small/low quality patches; frequent extinctions and recolonization ("receiver" patches)

Spatial and temporal variability allows co-existence

Spatial Variation - Similar habitats occur in many different places in a locale - Species can find areas to persist within a landscape avoiding direct competition - separation can be due to spatial differences as well as competition Temporal variatiaion - can give some species advantages during some years or part of years allowing them to persist in other years when they are at disadvantage

Sympatric Speciation

Speciation in the same location

Phylogenetic Species Concept

Species are the smallest possible groups whose members are descended from a common ancestor and who all posses defining or derived characteristics that distinguish them from other such groups

Succession in vegetation communities

Succession - natural changes in the composition and structure of an ecological community over time - The replacement of one community by another - Orderly succession may apply

Food web

Summarises trophic relationships

Meta-analysis

Systematic analysis of results of published research

Incisors

Teeth between the canines that are used for cutting.

Canines

Teeth in front of the premolars that rip and tear food.

Introgression

The movement of alleles from one species or population to another

Secretion

The movement of material that has a specific task after leaving the cell or organism

Ecological niche

The position of a species within an ecosystem, describing both the range of conditions necessary for persistence of the species, and its ecological role in the ecosystem

Fossils

The preserved remains or any preserved trace of a once living organism - Any living organism can become a fossil, but most organisms do not fossilize Organisms are more likely to fossilise if: - Have bones or hard structures - Organism is quickly covered after it dies e.g. by seafloors sediment, lava or tar - The remains are in an anoxic environment - Chemistry of environment doesn't dissolve organism

Entropy

The tendency for the random movement of molecules to spread any local concentrations of the energy out evenly. Energy that is spread out is lost (cannot be used for work)

radiation

The transfer of energy by electromagnetic waves

convection

The transfer of thermal energy by the circulation or movement of a liquid or gas

Pheromone detection and receptor organ morphology

Theory - By releasing small quantities of sex-pheromone, females attract males with larger attennae (and of higher quality) Experiment - Place either one or two female Gum-leaf skel;etoniser moths in Delta traps - Measure size of trapped males Solitary females, who release less pheromone, attracrt males with larger attenae

Distribution

Three types - Clumped; most common. May be due to how resources are distributed in environment or social reasons. Also for protection or make detection more effective - Uniform; often result of competition or territoriality (indiv. defending space) - Random; is independent of where other individuals are. Happens when there is an absence of strong forces of attraction or repulsion or resources plentily available in area. - Pattern depends on scale at which we are looking.

Why do animals reproduce

To pass on genetic material and continue species

Gene flow

Transfer of genetic information from one population to another and can alter allele frequency - Can introduce new genetic variation OR reintroduce existing genetic variation - Occurs via migration, movement or hybridisation - For geneflow to occur, individual must be able to disperse, interbreed and produce viable offspring - Tends to homogenise more connected population lack of gene flow promotes interpopulation differentiation

Visual modalities (light)

Visual acuity (ability to see) varies across species, and may depend upon eye size - The ability to detect a signal varies with distance and species

Masquerade

Type of camouflage that prevents recognition by resembling an uninteresting or unimportant object, like a leaf or stick - E.g. titan stick-insect

Early adaptions: Cilia

Unicellular species that use cilia tend to be: - Larger than species that use flagellum - Move faster than species that use a flagellum

Brood parasites

Use other species to raise their young (e.g. insects, cuckoos)

Rock Pocket Mice (Chaetodipus Intermedius)

VARIATION: Coat colour (light vs dark) HEREDITY: Alleles are heritable SELECTION: - Environmental conditions

Genetic drift

When alleles become more or less common simply by chance - Always an element of randomness in determining which alleles are passed on by parental population - Allele frequency changes via genetic drift from 'sampling error' - Allele freq. of next gen is influenced by number of individuals that breed and alleles they have - does not favour any allele

Infection

When parasites colonise a host, the host harbours an infection

Resource partitioning

When species divide a niche to avoid competition for resources - e.g. species change morphology (size and shape) to reduce competition = character displacement (mud snails) - e.g. species change behaviour

Mullerian mimicry

Where two or more species have similarly anti-predator traits (i.e. distasteful) and similar 'warning' signals, but do not share an immediate common ancestor - E.g. Heliconius butterfleis from tropics of Western Hemisphere

Fundamental niche

a multidimensional hyperspace, containing conditions and resources that allow the species to survive

predator-prey cycle

a pattern of oscillations in the population density of prey followed by a corresponding change in the population density of the prey's predator

Cluster analysis

a technique used to divide an information set into mutually exclusive groups such that the members of each group are as close together as possible to one another and the different groups are as far apart as possible

Endosymbiotic Theory

a theory that states that certain kinds of prokaryotes began living inside of larger cells and evolved into the organelles of modern-day eukaryotes

Species Pool

all the species available within a region that potentially colonise and inhabit an area

metabolism

chemical transformations that lead to growth of individual where simple material ingredients are being put together into extremely complex structures.

Trophic level

each of several hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, comprising organisms that share the same function in the food chain and the same nutritional relationship to the primary sources of energy.

Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU)

group of organisms that shares at least 97% SSU rRNA gene sequence identity

ontogeny

growth and development from egg to adult

Genomic analysis of many individuals

i) Collect samples ii) Create 'Libraries' and sequence iii) Investigate one locus/gene or entire genome iv) Identify SNPs and other genetic variation

Whole genome sequencing (reference genome)

i) Extraction of DNA ii) Create DNA 'Library' iii) Sequence iv) Assemble data (and annotation)

Ecological prezygotic isolation

pollinators: Mimulus species attract different pollinators - agent of change: Natural selection has anabled plants and pollinators to co-evolve

Trophic cascades

predator -prey effects that alter the abundance, biomass or productivity of a species, functional group or trophic level across more than one link in a food web

metabolic niche

set of conditions in environment within requirements in order to reproduce and add to population. includes: - temperature - food - water - sunlight (plants) - pH - salinity - other organisms of same kind (potential mates and competition - organisms of different kind ( prey, predators, diseases)

metabolic web

shows patterns of organism

Timing prezygotic isolation

spawning times of two coral species do not overlap

Pre-molars

teeth between canines and molars

ordination analysis

the study of how species distributions relate to the environment, including how species ranges and densities are distributed along environmental gradients

evaporation of sweat

used by many mammals to cool themselves, achieve this by the large amount of heat needed to break hydrogen bonds in water molecules

torpor state

when animal temperature is lower than normal level, dropping metabolic rate

Australia- Megadiverse nation

• 1 of 17 mega-diverse nations • More species than any other developed nation • Endemism - 87% mammals, 93% reptiles, 94% frogs found only here - 110 extinctions since European invasion - 1800 now listed as at high risk -35% of all modern global mammal extinctions

Natural temperate grassland of the Victorian Volcanic Plain: Critically Endangered

• < 0.1% of pre‐European extent remaining • Community includes many threatened species • Faces a variety of threats: - urban development - invasive species (weeds) - changed disturbance regimes

WALFA - West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement

• Agreement between Conoco-Phillips and West Arnhem Land communities (mediated by NAILSMA - North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance) • Pay to pollute agreement ($15,000,000 for 15 years - $1,000,000 p/a) • $1,000,000 of carbon offsets annually • Additional savings can be traded

Caring for Country

• Caring for Country embodies set stewardship values for land and sea environments which are deeply embedded in Aboriginal culture • Responsibility for and the inherent right to manage one's Country in a way that is ecologically, socially, culturally and economically sustainable - Using resources - The spirit and furture generations - Health, education and economy

Ecological communities are constantly changing

• Communities are never static • Changes are linked to the four community‐level processes • Selection, dispersal and drift are important over shorter time scales (years to centuries) • Evolutionary diversification may be less important over these time scales

Map

• Community ~ environment • Model within defined region? • Model then map • Two steps: classify first, then predict

Melbourne Strategic Assessment 2009

• Conducted under the EPBC Act • 40,000 ha of new housing • 4,500 ha of grassland to be lost • New grassland reserves to be established as an "offset" • Some provisions for EPBC‐listed species incl. growling grass frog What went wrong? • Offsets trade off a definite loss versus a possible future gain • The new grassland reserves have not been delivered • New wetlands to compensate for lost growling grass frog habitat are not yet built • Better EPBC compliance & enforcement required

Environmental gradients

• Cover • Aspect • Solar radiation • Temperature

Strategies for disease prevention and control of microparasites

• Culling (of infected animals and plants, and disease vectors) • Behavioral modifications including quarantine and social distancing • Vaccination (e.g. measles)

Bushfires, British Invasion and Cultural Burning

• Cultural burning kept landscape fuel loads low • Cultural burning maintains a gap between ground and canopy fuels - The British Invasion has let to an increase in landscape-scape fuel loads • This has produced a more fire-prone environment • This has produced the situation that has led to catastrophic bushfires we are now experiencing • Climate change has exacerbated these trends

Indirect effects of predation

• E.g. hiding • categories include; Developmental, morphological, physiological, behavioural • Significant costs - impact of intimidation on prey demographics was at least as strong as direct consumption (scared to death)

Temporal scales

• Earliest known insect pollination of a flower • Cretaceous period (99 million years ago) • Tumbling flower beetle, eudicot pollen - pollinators and flowers 99mill years ago having mutualistic relationship Cane toads in Australia - steadily growing pop in aus - Novel predator‐prey interactions • Sand goannas are naïve to bufotoxin - May be Trophic Cascades

Impact spatial arrangements

• Finland forest bird community • Sparrowhawk (predator) • Predation risk closest to nest • Birds of preferred prey size avoided nests

Giant kelp marine forests of south‐east Australia: Endangered (2012)

• Giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera forms a closed canopy • The largest and fastest growing marine plant, favours cold water • Adds vertical structure, creating habitat for many other species • Threats: climate change (sea‐surface temperature, weather patterns), increased nutrient availability

Macro-parasites

• Grow on or in but do not multiply on their host. Unlike microparasites. • Produce infectious stages which they release into the environment to find new hosts. • Often live on the body or in the body cavities (e.g. the gut/intestine) rather than being intra-cellular. e.g. helminths, nematode worms, tapeworms, copepods, lice, fleas, ticks, mites

Tropical savanna - Indigenous cultural burning

• Indigenous burning aims to target small areas early in the dry-season, while fuel load are low and still moist - fires can be controlled and new growth over the next months attracts animals. • This is a highly managed and sophisticated management regime based on strict laws (kinship and cosmology). • Has big knock on effects for biodiversity (landscape heterogeneity) and ecosystem health.

The EPBC Act

• Ineffective - species continue to decline, clearing of threatened ecological communities is rarely prevented • Samuel Review is currently underway: • "Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat" • Recommending new national standards & an independent environmental regulator

Disruption of inter‐specific interactions can alter communities

• Inter‐specific interactions, developed over time via co‐evolution, can shape ecological communities • Disruption of important interactions can alter ecological communities • This includes changes to species composition and community structure

Indigenous fire management (Cultural Burning)

• Is intimate and reflexive to local settings - requires a "feet on the ground" relationship with country • Is performed under strict cosmological and kinship protocols for a range of reasons: spiritual, ritual, pragmatic, economic The net effect is: • Reduced landscape fuel loads • Reduced vertical connectivity of fuels • Protection of fire sensitive ecosystems • Connection to country and improved Indigenous lives and livelihoods

Banksia Woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain

• Listed as an endangered ecological community in 2016 • Part of the SW Western Australia biodiversity hotspot • Very diverse: 600+ plant species, and animal species • Supports 20+ threatened species Faces a range of threats: - Habitat clearing for agriculture and urban development - Mining - Habitat fragmentation - Phytophthora dieback - from an introduced fungal pathogen - Invasive species - Climate change

Co‐evolution drives antagonistic relationships between species

• Many species have co‐evolved in response to relationships that benefit one species but harm the other (+/‐) • Ongoing evolution of the traits of each species in an antagonistic relationship = an evolutionary arms race

Implications for conservation

• Many threatened species only remain in separate, often small, populations • No single population may guarantee long-term survival... but the combination of several populations may do! • Important to preserve or enhance connectivity Concepts and models of metapopulation dynamics can halp: - Assess viability of populations of threatened species - Choose suitable designs for reserves and corridors - Identify suitable management strategies

Tropical savanna

• Most fire-prone environment on Earth (found either side of the equator where there is a prolonged seasonal dry period, but where biomass production is high. • Currently, most of Australia's tropical savannas burn late in the dryseason, when fuel loads are high and dry and when lightning begins to strike • Warm tropical climate • 6-7 month long dry season • Intense 5 month wet season • 1 month "build up" at the end of the dry season • Dry lightning strikes

Coral and zooxanthellae

• Mutualistic relationship between coral polyps (animals) and single‐celled dinoflagellates (algae) • Zooxanthellae live within the coral: ≤30,000 algal cells/mm 3 of coral tissue • Coral reefs depend on this relationship • When stressed, coral may expel their zooxanthellae, leading to coral bleaching • Bleaching events are becoming more common as ocean temperatures rise

Flying‐foxes and plants

• Mutualistic relationship between mammalian herbivores (flying‐foxes) and many species of plants • Flying‐foxes feed on nectar, blossom and fruits • Important pollinators and seed dispersers in Australia and the Pacific • Declining flying‐fox populations may impact many species in a community • Flying‐foxes are becoming more urban • What plant species are flying‐foxes feeding on in cities and towns? • Understanding this will help us predict influxes, reduce human‐ wildlife conflict

Newts and garter snakes

• Newts of the genus Taricha (prey) produce tetrodotoxin (TTX), a powerful neurotoxin • Garter snakes (predator) have evolved resistance to tetrodotoxin • Resistance is not uniform across space: geographic hotspots & coldspots of co‐ evolution • Selection drives variation in resistance

Food webs in saltmarsh communities / How parasitse fit on food webs

• Parasites affect food webs, so should be included. • Parasites are difficult to include due to difficulties in studying (tiny, hard to detect, hard to identify etc) • Subwebs solution: predator-prey, parasite-host, predator-parasite, parasite-parasite. • Topological food web: focus on number and distribution of connections, using data

Feral predators in Australia

• Predation by cats and foxes threatens many species of mammals, birds & reptiles • Each is listed as a threatening process • Cats kill > 1 million animals per day • Led to 'The war on cats' • Impacts on ecological communities? • Body size and habitat influence vulnerability to predation

Feral herbivores in Australia

• Rabbits, horses, camels, deer, goats... • Change vegetation through grazing and trampling • Cause soil erosion, damage waterways • Impact on the habitat of many other species • Control of feral herbivores is difficult and often controversial

Disturbance regimes

• Regime: the long‐term pattern of disturbance across a landscape - its frequency, size and intensity - Disturbance regimes as probabilities: how likely is a disturbance event of a particular size and intensity in a given year/decade? - Estimated using historical data • Changes to disturbance regimes can be considered as a threatening process - E.g., bushfires likely to become more frequent and more intense in south‐east Australia under climate change resulting in long‐term changes in the composition of communities that are burnt too frequently

Fecundity and parental investment examples in plants

• Same broad patterns also seen in plants • Plants produce either large numbers of energetically "cheap" seeds or small numbers of energetically "expensive" seeds. • e.g. coconuts (and other large nuts) produce small numbers of energy rich seeds, each of which has a good chance of germinating into a new organism. Plants with high fecundity, such as orchids, many small, energy-poor seeds, each of which has a relatively low chance of surviving.

Potoroos, truffles and mycorrhizae

• Small mammals in the family Potoroidae feed on truffles (underground fruiting bodies of mycorrhizal fungi) • Important disperser of spores - 'ecosystem engineers' • High extinction rate of small mammals in Australia, many species threatened • Impact on key mycorrhizal relationships?

Parasites

• Smaller than host • Live on or in host for extended time • Usually don't kill host • Host may recover from parasite The habitats of parasites are themselves alive. They: • Grow • Respond • Evolve • Move

Lowland rainforest of subtropical Australia: Critically Endangered (2011)

• Tall closed forest • Diverse community including many species of plants, animals & fungi • Previously one of Australia's largest rainforests • Extensively cleared for timber and agriculture/grazing • Ongoing clearing for horticulture & residential development

Flying‐foxes and plants on Christmas Island

• The CI flying‐fox is the last surviving endemic mammal on Christmas Island • One of two frugivores - important seed disperser & pollinator • Critically endangered following significant population declines • Impacts on native plants and vegetation structure?

Threatened ecological communities are recognised under the EPBC Act

• The EPBC Act is Australia's federal conservation legislation • Provides a legal framework to protect and manage matters of national environmental significance (MNES) • MNES include threatened species, migratory species and threatened ecological communities

Interspecific interactions are important across many different scales

• Time (temporal scales) • Space (geographic scales) • Body size (morphometric scales)

Worlds largest forest carbon store

• Trees live for ~350yrs • 1900 tonnes/hectare (Melbourne's Mountain ash forests) • Average tropical forest stores 200-500 t/ha

Tropical savanna - late dry season wildfires

• Unburnt fuel accumulated through the dry season to the build up • Dry lightning strikes ignite huge, hot and canopy destroying fires • Carbon released into the atmosphere contributes ca.3% of Australia's carbon emissions - Above the 1000 mm p/a isophet (now 600 mm p/a) changing the timing of fire can be used to offset carbon emissions - savanna burning. - Carbon savings can be traded (the future is uncertain...) - WALFA - Huge effort in benchmarking carbon release for a 7 year baseline period prior to WALFA - Direct measurements of carbon stocks, carbon release under differing fire regimes, mapping fire scars, etc... - Huge effort of coordinating autonomous communities in different environments to meet a single objective - Significant "co-benefits": • Return to country • Health effects (physical and psychological) • Biodiversity effects

Fire, Country and Carbon

• Unmanaged by cultural burning, tropical savannas accumulate fuels through the dry season that lead to catastrophic wildfires once the dry lightning during the build up arrives • Late season wildfires destroy biodiversity and contribute to Australia's carbon emissions • Cultural burning targets small fires throughout the dry season for a range of reasons • The return of cultural burning to tropical savannas has restored biodiversity, reduced carbon emissions and increased the health and well being of Aboriginal people

Vegetation succession at Wilsons Promontory

• Yanakie Isthmus at Wilsons Promontory • Vegetation changes 1958 to 2008 • Invasion of Coastal grassy woodland by coastal tea‐tree Leptospermum laevigatum • Management of fire and grazing to restore woodland

Mathematical Models

• equation, or set of equations, used to describe a phenomenon • a simplified, quantitative representation of the truth • balance between complexity and utility • include model parameters that take different values depending on the scenario that is being represented

r-selected species (density independent)

• high rates of fecundity • short gestation • low levels of parental investment in the young • high rates of mortality before individuals mature

K-selected species (density dependent)

• low rates of fecundity • high levels of parental investment in the young • low rates of mortality of mature individuals