Access over 20 million homework & study documents

ECOLOGY

Content type
User Generated
Rating
Showing Page:
1/11
Running Head: ECOLOGY 1
ECOLOGY
Name:
Institution:
Course:
Instructor:
Date:

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Showing Page:
2/11
ECOLOGY 2
The intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis
The intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis is one of the most controversial ecological
presumptions. This is following its assumptions that species diversity maximizes when the
ecological experiences neither too frequent nor seldom disturbance (Connell, 1978).
Therefore, at low intensity of disturbances, numerous competitive organisms will push to
eliminate subordinate organisms from the ecosystem hence; causing the extinction of some
organisms while others thrive. In high levels of disturbance such as wild fire and human
activities such as deforestation, all species face the risk of extinction. Hence, IDH theory
believes in the moderate level of disturbance, which shall ensure that both selected
opportunistic-selected and competitive K- selected species coexist (Connell, 1978).
This hypothesis assumes that when there are high or low levels of disturbance, many
species might risk extinction. Hence, to avert the risk of ecological extinction and create
harmony between organisms, there should be moderate levels of ecological disturbance. The
ability for organism to coexist guarantees the continuality in the ecosystem where both
completive and opportunistic organisms give each other room for survival (Connell, 1978).
K-selected species tend to develop resilient and are competitive since these organisms occupy
large resources and dominates stable ecosystem over a lengthy duration. On the other hand,
opportunistic r-selected occupy open areas rapidly; areas cleared by any form disturbance
recently. Therefore, areas that experience disturbance occasionally provides both competitive
and opportunistic species survival merits in the same area.
Literature Review
Intermediate disturbance hypothesis states that some organism stands to hinder the
development and survival of other inferior species if there is no disturbance. There are
various forms of disturbances that may affect the diversity of an ecosystem. Some of the

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Showing Page:
3/11

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
End of Preview - Want to read all 11 pages?
Access Now
Unformatted Attachment Preview
1 Running Head: ECOLOGY ECOLOGY Name: Institution: Course: Instructor: Date: 2 ECOLOGY The intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis The intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis is one of the most controversial ecological presumptions. This is following its assumptions that species diversity maximizes when the ecological experiences neither too frequent nor seldom disturbance (Connell, 1978). Therefore, at low intensity of disturbances, numerous competitive organisms will push to eliminate subordinate organisms from the ecosystem hence; causing the extinction of some organisms while others thrive. In high levels of disturbance such as wild fire and human activities such as deforestation, all species face the risk of extinction. Hence, IDH theory believes in the moderate level of disturbance, which shall ensure that both selected opportunistic-selected and competitive K- selected species coexist (Connell, 1978). This hypothesis assumes that when there are high or low levels of disturbance, many species might risk extinction. Hence, to avert the risk of ecological extinction and create harmony between organisms, there should be moderate levels of ecological disturbance. The ability for organism to coexist guarantees the continuality in the ecosystem where both completive and opportunistic organisms give each other room for survival (Connell, 1978). K-selected species tend to develop resilient and are competitive since these organisms occupy large resources and dominates stable ecosy ...
Purchase document to see full attachment
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Anonymous
I was stuck on this subject and a friend recommended Studypool. I'm so glad I checked it out!

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4