Exponential growth model of weevil populations: a didactic experiment
for undergraduate course of Population Ecology
Abstract
Exponential model for population growth (exponential model) is a
cornerstone to evaluate population dynamics in Population Ecology field.
Here, we used a didactic experiment to teach exponential model for an
undergraduate course of Population Ecology. We built nine populations of
weevils with three different initial sizes: eight, 16, and 32
individuals with three replicates each. We furnish them equal food
resource availability, and count their sizes weekly across 12 weeks. We
estimated the intrinsic and population growth rates (i.e., r and dN/dt
parameters) by trials and errors with an exponential model build in an
Excel spreadsheet. Replicates with eight and 16 individuals reached the
highest values of r and dN/dt, while replicates with 32 individuals
reached the lowest values. Beyond of exponential model, we observed two
density dependency issues acting in populations. First, in the lowest
initial population sizes we observed the effect of demographic
stochasticity acting in diminishing the number of individuals in one
population. Second, we observed the intraspecific competition reducing r
values in largest initial populations. Therefore, we highlight the
importance of didactic experiment into learning exponential model in
Population Ecology course.