Practice question

“Dispersal of individuals” for in a metapopulation, subpopulations are interconnected through. This relationship follows from the ecological mechanism represented by the terms in the item, not merely from an association between their names. Population ecology links individual births, deaths, immigration, and emigration to changes in abundance. Per-capita rates determine the direction of change, while density dependence creates feedback when crowding alters survival or reproduction. The remaining alternatives—“Genetic drift”, “Resource partitioning”, “Competitive exclusion”—refer to different states, processes, or scales and therefore do not express the same causal relationship. Interpretation must distinguish absolute population change from a per-capita rate and must state the time interval and population boundary. Age structure, dispersal, environmental variation, and delayed responses can all make observed trajectories depart from a simple model. Linking the wording to measurable consequences for fitness, abundance, or flux gives the conclusion its scientific meaning and prevents a purely mnemonic interpretation.