Describe the factors that might produce the following three types of dispersion patterns in populations.

Question

Three circles showing different population dispersion patterns: clumped, uniform, and random.

Accepted Answer

Hi everyone, here's our next question. It says which population dispersion is caused by resource competition. So let's think about this. We're thinking about how populations of organisms are distributed over a habitat. And we're saying which kind of dispersion would be caused by competition for resources. So the individuals in a given population competing for the same resources. So let's look at our answer choices here. The first time we have is random distribution. Um So this would be a population distributed due to random factors distributed independently of each other. And so this would be the key as to why it wouldn't be caused by resource competition. Because if they're competing for resources, they wouldn't be distributed independently of each other. They would be distributed in a way um to cause the least amount of competition between the individuals in the population. A random distribution would be caused by random factors. So an example would be a population of plants in which the wind disperses their seeds, so that would result in a random dispersion pattern of those seeds and then a random pattern of the plants that grow from them. So choice is not our answer choice B is clumped. This is one of population groups in clusters and that also would not be caused by resource competition because again, if you think of individuals in a population competing for scarce resources, having a cluster all close together, um It's gonna be a bad situation because individuals in that cluster would, you know, have more of them competing for a scarce resource versus individuals more spread out. So that would not be our answer here. You'd see a clump distribution in situations like animals that live in herds um in plants that drop their seeds straight to the ground in one spot, um or in Apache habitat where only some patches are livable, Then we can also eliminate choice D. Because that's both A. And B. We've eliminated A. And B. So we're down to choice C. Which is uniform and uniform distribution is indeed uh the type of dispersion we would see due to resource competition. And that's because again if you have a scarce resource individuals vying for that being spread an even distance away from each other gives them all sort of even access to those resources. You don't have scarcer areas where they're closer together. So uniform distribution is the population distribution caused by resource competition. So our answer is Choice C. See you in the next video.

Describe the factors that might produce the following three types of dispersion patterns in populations.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Population Dispersion Patterns

Environmental Factors

Biotic and Abiotic Interactions