Question

Use the following graph of two theoretical populations (species A and B) to answer the following questions:

a)What type of relationship do the two species appear to have with each other?

b)describe the role that each species, A and B, appears to play in this relationship. Explain why you labelled species A and B the way you did.

c)The population dynamics of species A tend to lag behind those for species B. Explain how this could occur.

Answer 1

A) This is predator-prey relationship.

B) Species A is prey and species B is predator.
- If prey population decreases in number, the predator population will also decrease because there is not enough food for predators to survive and vice versa.

- If predator population decreases, the prey population will increase because less prey will be eaten by predators and vice versa.

C) Let population A be Zebras, and population B Lions.

From the graph, at the beginning the there is increase in Lions, as well as in smaller rate in Zebras. At one point, the population of Lions begins to decrease, so they will eat less Zebras. This will allow Zebras to increase population. With more Zebras on the menu, more Lions will eat and increase their chance to survive. This leads to decrease in Zebra population. But again, with less Zebras, the Lion population must decrease allowing Zebra population to increase, and so on.