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Environmental Changes and Their Impact on the Red Wolf
Examples of Changes/Events that Result in Changes in Energy Availability
Climate Change
Climate change has adversely affected populations of red wolves, namely in that rising sea levels along with habitat loss have reduced these populations. Within the Albemarle Peninsula, located in North Carolina, rising sea levels have flooded red wolf habitats and other, more violent storms can have even more severe impacts. Violent storms have been known to destroy their habitat and destroy many sources of food for the red wolf (Red Wolf Issues and Concerns, n.d.). Violent storms can be considered as storms which have high wind speeds (64-72 knots) and have precipitation, lightning, and thunder (Vocabulary.com, n.d.). These events have often resulted in reduced energy availability for Red Wolves, which can negatively impact the population of the organism.
Population can be defined as the amount of a species within a specific habitat (“Definition of Population,” 2023). In this case, the population would be negatively impacted by these events, since the amount of red wolves within the Albemarle peninsula has been negatively impacted by climate change.
Open Fields
Agricultural fields are generally perceived as negatively impacting species populations as they often remove tree cover. However, open fields are beneficial for red wolf populations. A study conducted on the red wolf population in the Albemarle Peninsula found that red wolves were able to survive better in these locations as they provided distance from other human populations, making it more difficult for them to be negatively impacted by humans (Dellinger et al., 2013). Furthermore, these regions allow for them to more easily hunt prey, as there are significantly fewer areas that can be utilized as hiding spots.
This would increase the amount of bioenergy available in the ecosystem, meaning that it would help support the population further. This would result in an increased carrying capacity within the ecosystem because the environment would be able to support a higher amount of the species.
Map of the region in which the experiment was conducted.
Population Graphs
Animal populations generally resemble logistic growth, because there is often a limiting factor that prevents exponential growth from occurring. A limiting factor is any factor that limits the population of an animal, which could result in a lower carrying capacity than without a limiting factor. In most realistic models, the animal population fluctuates around the carrying capacity, however, in an ideal model, the population would reach the carrying capacity and would be unable to grow further. In the case of the red wolf population, after migrating to an open field, their carrying capacity would be positively impacted as the environment would be able to support more red wolves. However, after sea levels rise, the carrying capacity would decrease because the environment would no longer be able to support as many red wolves.
Calculating Population Size
The Lincoln Index is an index commonly used by many scientists to estimate the population size of species.
(Population Ecology | Definition, Characteristics, Importance, & Examples, 1999)
Logistic and exponential graphs are similar but they have a main difference. Logistic graphs have the same exponential growth, but a carrying capacity stops the growth from increasing even more. Exponential graphs do not have a limit to where they can reach.
Logistic and Exponential Equation Models
(Calcworkshop, 2020)
(Exponential Growth and Decay (Solutions, Examples, Worksheets, Videos, Activities), n.d.)
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