Selection Vs Intraspecific Selection

Intraspecific selection and interspecific selection are terms that may often get mixed in as a whole with natural selection although they are completely different phenomena. Interspecific selection is the final analysis of a competing species at a given place and time. Ultimately deciding what mutually competing species tops the other by what’s in front of them right there and then, “while intraspecific selection is capable of gradually forming and improving various useful biological structures, organs, macromolecules and patterns of behaviour”. (Frozenevolution.com, (2015). Selection intraspecific and interspecific evolution | Frozen Evolution). It starts to occur when members of a single species are competing for a limited resource. Intraspecific

As there is little dietary overlap with sperm whales and other species or they would generally top any potential competition we can say that interspecific competition wouldn’t regulate sperm whale populations. A study took place in 1991 in Kasuya, Japan. It was found that a reduction in feeding competition due to whaling reduced the overall population during the 1940’s – 1950’s (when the males where juveniles). This caused the now mature male population sizes that are longer then 16.8 meters to rise from 0-20%. This indirectly proves that intraspecific feeding competition is important to sperm whales.

A positive correlation between successful feeding and whale abundance may be because of the dependent movement for feeding, lingering in areas with plenty of food and leaving areas with no resources quickly. This mobility makes it hard to believe that a member of its species would directly swim in front of another interfering with its feeding. Thus for sperm whales intraspecific competition most likely occurs at the level of resource depletion caused by other sperm whales feeding in the same large general area during the previous

There is so much more research to be done on this topic, not only looking into divergence that has occurred or is occurring in whales but even researching into some of the species’ behavior. We need to know more about there patterns to see when there is a change in it and to then look into what has caused the alter in pattern. Obviously the ocean is enormous so siting’s of these mammals is infrequent and would cost an extensive amount to start looking into