Chapter 2
Biotic and abiotic factors play a big role to the endangerment of the Florida Panther. As we all know Biotic are living things,while abiotic are non living things.One of the abiotic factors are roads. Since Companies are taking away the panthers land, they migrate across roads, allowing another abiotic factor called vehicles to crash into them. A biotic factor would be Florida's population. As I said before over 18 million people live in Florida, while there are only 80 panthers. Another biotic factor would be the Panther's population. Since there are only 80 panthers they breed less.
An abiotic factor that would cause Range Of Tolerance would be vehicles. An article in a Florida newspaper tells us that in 2006 11 Panther were killed due to collisions with cars. In 2007 that number increased to 14. When you only have approximantely 80 panthers in florida during those 2 years and 25 get hit then 3.2% of the panther's population declined. If we don't do nothing about this then in the next year or so this species can become extinct due to vehicles. A biotic cause would be the tempature.In the summer panthers do not mate because of the tempature. The tempature raises between 90-110 degress. This prevents panther's from having an acceptable habitat. The summer has 5 months,while winter has 4. If they do not mate in the summer than a decrease in their population can come about. In the winter the tempature raise betweeen 60-70 degrees. Between may and September panther's don't breed,between October and February they mate
Limiting Factors are abiotic or biotic resources that determaine the size of a population. The biotic cause would be the state's population. As I said before this limits panther's from having their own territorial land. Florida Panther's only have less than 20% of land, the other 80% are human owned. This affects them in alot of ways. One way that affects them is the abilty to hunt other organisms for food.
A biome is a large region characterized by a specific type of climate and certain types of plants and animal communities. The factors that determaine the biome in which a species live in are,tempatures,precipitation,latitude,altitude and plants. The reason why these types of factors determaine a biome is because it allows them to adapt in any specific area and develop natural selection.
The Florida Panthers live in the everglades. The everglades consists of dense forests areas,mixed swamp areas,oak pine woodlands and many other wetlands(animal diversity web 2008). The reason why Florida Panthers live here is because the land is tropical. Florida Panthers are adapted to tropical areas. If they migtated anywhere north of Florida then they will have a hard time to adapt to the climate.
The tempature of the everglades reaches from about 56 in the winter to 91 in the summer. July and August are the teo hottest months in the everglades. January and February are the two coldest. The precipitation level is 52.10 inches. An article on idcide tells us that summer months tend to be wetter than winter months. The latitude of the everglades is 25.859N. The altitude is 8 to 15 feet above from sea level.
www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/(2)