What does it mean that a population is stable? It means that a community can rebound or bounce back after a change in their community. For example, fire, floods, roads being built through the community, human building. In the face of disaster or human interference, the ecosystem can maintain its balance. By balance, I mean, there is zero population growth because there are equal amount of organisms dying as there are being born. Is that possible? Even if you live on a Volcano?? It is possible for an ecosystem or a community to be stable in some of their properties and unstable in others; for example, in response to a drought, (or a VOLCANO) a plant community might save many individuals that can create lots of seeds and reseed the soil. Plant species are lost, and possibly a variety of different kinds of plants are lost, but the plant with the most seeds becomes the highest population plant in the area. Stable ecosystems are a theoretical model that represents what a community should look like and what characteristics make a stable population. (Nothing in life is perfectly stable...) Scientists use the stable ecosystem model to measure if an ecosystem is thriving or not thriving. When we look at the two garden pictures above, it is obvious to our eyes which garden is the healthiest and which one is the sorriest...immediately we can tell the garden with dirt patches needs help. That's how scientists measure ecosystems using the Stable Ecosystem Model to help guide them in discovering the reason for unstable ecosystem. The perfect stable ecosystem has a constant rate of growth and will maintain a constant age structure. (Equal older and younger organisms) If you graph population stability it looks like this...the population continues to grow until it reaches the top line where growth stops and organisms dying and being born are in equilibrium. Like I was saying, nothing in life is perfect and it seems that just when things are getting good a VOLCANO erupts in your backyard!!! I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would want to live on a volcano.... Watching lava flow is so satisfying???
14 Comments
|
Mrs. TaylorI love science! Everything about the world is interesting and never boring. I love to study plants, animals, insects, and people. My favorite subjects are my students who are the most unique organisms on the planet! Categories |