ANIMAL OR BIOLOGICAL POPULATION: TYPES, EXAMPLES - BIOLOGY - 2025

The biological population or population of animals is a group of organisms of the same species that share a habitat and that can be quantified in an exact or approximate way. For example, a biological population of elephants or lions in the savannah.

Biological populations can change over time due to births, deaths, and diasporas (the dispersal of individuals from the population).

Pack of wolves.

Also, when food is available in the environment and conditions are appropriate, biological populations can increase considerably.

Animal populations, like individual organisms, have attributes that differentiate them from other populations, among which are:

1 - Growth rate.

2 - Birth rate.

3 - Mortality rate.

4 - Biotic potential, which refers to the maximum capacity of populations to increase when conditions are favorable.

In this sense, animal populations depend on certain limiting factors that can affect organisms, such as the availability of food and water. In biology, these factors are called "environmental resistance."

All aspects of biological populations, their genetic composition, their relationships with other populations and the factors that affect them, are studied by population genetics, a branch of biology.

Interaction between the animal population and the other populations of an ecosystem

Animal populations interact with each other and, in turn, interact with other populations, such as plants. These interactions can be of various types, with consumption being one of the main ones.

For example, there are populations of animals that consume plants as a food source; these animals are called herbivores.

Similarly, there are various types of herbivores: those that consume grass are called grazers, those that consume the leaves of plants are known as foliophages, while those that feed on the fruits are called frugivores.

The relationship between predators and prey is curious since when the prey population increases, the predator population does the same until the prey decreases. Similarly, if the number of prey decreases, the number of predators will also decrease.

Other relationships between populations are competition, parasitism, commensalism, and mutualism. Competition between populations is a concept that refers to the fact that two species that require the same elements to survive cannot coexist in the same habitat.

The reasoning behind this concept is that one of the two species will have a greater chance of adapting to the habitat, so it will prevail, excluding the other competing species.

For their part, parasitism, commensalism and mutualism are symbiotic relationships. In parasitism, a parasite and a host intervene; In this relationship, the parasite is the only one who benefits, while the host is negatively affected.

In commensalism, one of the species benefits while the other is not affected either positively or negatively. Finally, in mutualism, the two species involved are influenced by the relationship.

Remora and shark, example of commensalism

Birds and flowers, example of mutualism

The biological population and limiting factors

The various biological populations are connected to each other as in a puzzle, which means that one population depends on the stability of another population and vice versa.

In nature, there are several factors that can affect this stability, such as the availability of suitable habitats, water and food, competition between different populations, the existence of predators and diseases.

These factors can be classified into two groups: those produced by humans (such as the destruction of natural habitats to build houses and buildings) and those produced by nature (such as the existence of predators).

Types of populations

Biological populations can be classified into four types according to the relationship between the members that make them up, namely: family populations, colonial populations, gregarious populations and state populations.

1 - Family populations

As the name implies, family populations are composed of individuals united by a kinship tie. An example of a family population is a pride of lions.

2 - Colonial populations

Colonial populations are made up of two or more individuals connected to each other. In this sense, colonies are clusters of identical cellular organisms linked to a primitive organism, as in the case of coral reefs or jellyfish.

Jellyfish

Corals

3 - Gregarious populations

Gregarious populations are those that are formed during migrations or mobilizations of individuals.

In general, the members of these populations do not share kinship ties. Examples of this type of population are flocks of birds, schools of fish and some insects that travel in groups.

Ducks

Fishes

4 - State populations

The state populations are those that present divisions between the members with respect to the function that each one of the individuals of the population performs.

Insects are the only ones that organize themselves in state populations; for example, in bees, the differentiation between the queen, the workers and the drones is found.

Bees

Population genetics and animal populations

Population genetics, also known as population biology, is a field of biology that studies the genetic composition of animal populations as well as the changes that occur as a result of various factors, such as natural selection.

In this sense, population genetics is directly related to the study of evolution, which is why it is usually considered as a theoretical branch of modern Darwinism.

References

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4. Population Biology Basics. Retrieved on May 24, 2017, from thoughtco.com.
5. Colony (biology). Retrieved on May 24, 2017, from en.wikipedia.org.
6. Population genetics. Retrieved on May 24, 2017, from plato.stanford.edu.
7. Population genetics. Retrieved on May 24, 2017, from en.wikipedia.org.
8. Population genetics. Retrieved on May 24, 2017, from le.ac.uk.