50. Population Ecology

A group of population ecologists capture & mark 8 starlings in a grassland, then a few days later they capture 15 starlings but none of them are marked. What is the estimated starling population size in the grassland?

You & your team of population ecologists capture 16 turtles in Lake Springfield, mark each of them with a dot of waterproof paint on their shell & release them back into the lake. One week later you go back to Lake Springfield & capture 4 turtles that have been marked with paint, & 22 that are unmarked. Estimate the total population size of turtles in Lake Springfield.

When calculating population size with the mark and recapture method, which of these assumptions must be made?

Which of the following is an appropriate method for sampling an ostrich population?

Ecologists are using molecular tools to analyze DNA samples from a population of endangered wolves to estimate their population size. They collected DNA samples from 20 individual wolves and found that most of the sampled wolves were closely related to each other. What can be inferred about the population size of these wolves based on this data?