Group choice: competition, travel, and the ideal free distribution

The z and the Student t distribution estimate the population mean using the sample mean and standard deviation. However, to decide which distribution to use for a calculation, one needs to determine the sample size, the nature of the distribution, and whether the population standard deviation is known. If the population standard deviation is known and the population is normally distributed, or if the sample size is greater than 30, the z distribution is preferred. The Student t distribution is...

The uniform distribution is a continuous probability distribution of events with an equal probability of occurrence. This distribution is rectangular.Two essential properties of this distribution are The area under the rectangular shape equals 1. There is a correspondence between the probability of an event and the area under the curve.Further, the mean and standard deviation of the uniform distribution can be calculated when the lower and upper cut-offs, denoted as a and b,...

Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with their environment and with one another. An important aspect of ecology is understanding where species are found and how individuals are distributed within those areas. The geographic range of a species refers to the total area where its members are located, while dispersion describes the pattern of spacing of individuals within that range.Geographic Range and Dispersion PatternsWithin a species’ geographic range, individuals may be distributed...

Most altruistic behavior—in which one animal helps another at a cost to themselves—occurs between relatives. Scientists think these altruistic behaviors evolved because they increase the inclusive fitness of the animal providing help.

When organisms require the same limited resources within an environment, they may have to compete for them. Competition is a net-negative interaction. Even if two competing individuals or populations do not interact directly, the overall fitness of both competitors is lowered as a result of not having full access to the limited resource.Intraspecific competition, which occurs between individuals of the same species, serves as a natural mechanism for regulating population size. Too much...

While Mendel’s Law of Segregation states that the two alleles for one gene are separated into different gametes, a different question of how different genes are inherited remains. For example, is the gene for tall plants inherited with the gene for green peas? Mendel asked this question by experimenting with a dihybrid cross; a cross in which both parents are homozygous for two distinct traits resulting in an F1 generation that are heterozygous for both traits.