Communities and evolution:
Resource competition
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Suggestion for lesson plan:
This workshop will be 45 minutes or 2 x 45 min long. 1. Introduction slides Hera are general introduction (+slides) to use in teaching. The introductory slides start by defining competition, which is an interaction between organisms in which both are harmed when trying to use the same resource. During the workshop participants are encouraged to discuss and think, what are the resources that species and individuals compete for and how it can affect the population dynamics, adaptations and evolution of the species. In the slides there are listed some of the resources that the organisms can compete for, and how niche overlapping can affect the interspecific competition. Going through these slides should last about 15 minutes. 2. Resource competition Participants can play the resource competition game. The idea of the game is to demonstrate how overlapping niches and resource availability or densities can affect interspecific competition. The game has two versions that differ in their duration. In the shorter version participants can play only under one scenario: competition or no completion (ca 15-20 min). In the longer version participants can play under both scenarios (ca 30-40 minutes). After the game, you can visualize the result by drawing how the number of life chips changes with each round for each species and scenarios (no competition vs competition) separately. The x-axis will indicate the number of rounds, and the y-axis the total number of life chips per species for each round. You can also use this excel sheet to visualize your results. You can discuss several things: Does the number of life chips differ with increasing rounds between “competition” and “no competition” group? Why? Why is interspecific competition important? – – – – – – – – – – More resources and inspiration: Books: * Peter R. Grant ja B. Rosemary Grant: 40 Years of Evolution: Darwin´s Finches on Daphne Major Island. Princeton University Press. 2014 Videos: * FuseSchool: Competition and Natural Selection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDydt4r-DxE * FuseSchool: Evolution by Natural Selection-Darwin´s Finches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s64Y8sVYfFY |