Chapter 6

Structure and Organism of Single Species population

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the structure and organisms in a single species population

2. Describe the population ratios in relation to the key features of population and population dynamics

3. Provide examples for the structure and organisms in a single species population

You have learned on the previous module that a population is a group of people or animals of a
particular kind that live in a place. The previous module also discuss the key features of population
dynamics which are size, density and dispersion. In addition to, key features of population such as birth
rate, death rate and growth rate were tackled. With this, we can now have a look at different concepts
involving population ecology.

Carrying capacity was mentioned during the previous discussion as well as on the given video whereas,
carrying capacity was defined as the number of species a certain area can sustain based on the
availability of resources. The question now is how does this affects the growth or death of a population?
In population ecology we have this concept called resource partitioning. For us to better understand this
concept, lets take an example. For instance, at home, your mother bought a whole fried chicken for the
seven members of your family. Applying the concept of resource partitioning, the mother should divide
the chicken into seven equal parts and distribute it to the seven members allowing them to have a taste
of it. In a natural setting, since in a given area, there are instances that different organisms tend to
compete for the same resources where predators dominate the prey, it can be said that resource
partitioning is not applied causing the number of some species to prosper while the other species don’t.
This event may tend to affect others factors of population ecology. Lets take a look at them one by one.

Population Ratios

Population ratios are used to describe the degree of balance between two elements of the population,
e.g., Males vs. females, children versus women of reproductive age. The ratio is normalized to refer to a
standard unit of people, usually 100 persons.

Sex ratio: The sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in the population (normalized to 100). We
calculate two sex-ratios: At birth, and in the total population.

The sex ratio at birth is fairly standard, around 105. Due to higher mortality among males, the sex ratio
in the total population switches to 95-97. For populations with high levels of sex-selective outmigration
(such as male soldiers leaving a country for war), particularly in certain age groups (e.g. aged 15-29), the
sex ratio may be even smaller.Ranges for sex ratios:

 Sex ratio at birth: 105 except for African populations, where it is 102-103

 Sex ratio for total population: 101.5

 Sex ratio for population 15-49, with heavy male outmigration: 99.9

EXAMPLE: You have been asked to determine if there may be a problem with underreporting of female
births in

Rajasthan, India. The birth registers for the district show 2456 male births and 2102 female births.

Sex ratio at birth: (2456 / 2102 ) * 100 = 117.

As you can see, you’ve got 117 sex ratio which is very far from the mentioned standard sex ratio which is
105. thus, it can be said that they have been a mistake on the recording of data or you can have the
following conclusions:

1. This is not a reasonable or even possible value.

2. Excess male births relative to female births can be due to actual differences in the births (suggesting
sex selective abortions ) or they may be due to gender bias in registering births ( male births are
reported, where as females are not).

3. You decide that you need to do some more investigation into the matter to discover more about who
registers births, the cost of registering births, sex preferences, any procedures used to identify a child’s
sex early in the pregnancy, and any local information about availability of abortions or natural
abortifacents.

So how does sex ratio affects population? If there are more male than female, manpower is guaranteed
but the thing is, there will be less female to reproduce causing the decline in population or worst is that
may lead to extinction of species.

Dependency ratios- This ratio quantifies the number of persons in a population who are not
economically active for every 100 economically active persons in that population. It can be calculated by
dividing the population 0-14 years and 65 years and older by the population that is in the 15-64 year age
group. Example: A community has 41,650 children under age 14 and 6,800 persons age 65 and over. The
total population is 85,000.

The dependency ratio is:

(48450/(85000- 48450)) * 100 = 133.

You can also use the percentages from age distributions.

Example: (57%/43%) * 100 = 133.

You can calculate separate dependency ratios: child dependency ratio (Pop 0-14 / Pop 15-64) and old
age dependency ratio (Pop 65+/Pop 15-64).

Ranges for child dependency ratios:

 Least Developed: 80.8

 Developing: 53.1

 More Developed: 29.4

It has been founded by studies that, places with more economical growth tend to have lesser offsprings
as compared to countries with less economic growth. This may contribute to the fact that they are busy
enough to provide for the family. Lets take Japan and Philippines as an example. Japan tend to have
lesser dependency ratio as compared to Philippines. In the Philippines, it may be attributed to the fact
that we usually have extended families. Also, as compared to other countries that let their children be
independent at 18, there are instances that in the Filipino household, even with this age, we still live
with our family.

Child-woman ratio- This ratio, the CWR, the ratio of children under 5 per 1000 women of reproductive
age. It is usually calculated by dividing the number of children in the age group 0-4 (of both sexes) by the
number of women of reproductive age (15-49 years), and then multiplying by 1000. This can be referred
to as the fertility rate. Its important to note that the higher the fertility rate, the higher the chance to
reproduce for some species.

Example: A district in Viet Nam has the 4896 children under age 5 and 10,200 women aged 15-49. The

CWR is:

(4896/10200) * 1000 = 480.

In the absence of a direct measure of births, this ratio can be used as a rough indicator of fertility levels.
In countries with high levels of infant and child mortality, this ratio can be quite biased- as it only
accounts for children who survive to 4 years of age.

Ranges for the CWR:

 Least Developed: 710

 Developing: 400

 More Developed: 255

Maternal mortality ratio – The maternal mortality ratio(MMR) is the number of maternal deaths per
100,000 live births. The numerator only includes deaths to women during their pregnancy or in the first
6 weeks after delivery. This may be represented through the so called life table.

This ratio is often used in lieu of the maternal mortality rate (the number of maternal deaths per
100,000 women aged 15-49 per year) because of the difficulty in obtaining accurate data to calculate
the rate of this relatively infrequent event in a population which is subject to great underestimation,
since all pregnancies, births and deaths tend to be underreported .

Ranges for the MMR:

 Least Developed: 1000

 Developing: 440

 More Developed: 12
This may be represented through the so called life table. A life table is a table which shows, for a person
at each age, what the probability is that they die before their next birthday. From this starting point, a
number of statistics can be derived and thus also included in the table is:

 the probability of surviving any particular year of age

 the remaining life expectancy for people at different ages

 the proportion of the original birth cohort still alive.

Life tables are usually constructed separately for men and for women because of their substantially
different mortality