Table of Contents
- 1 What are the factors that limit the growth of population?
- 2 What factors limit animal population growth?
- 3 What limits growth in the exponential growth model?
- 4 How are limiting factors related to population growth?
- 5 How is population growth related to the logistic growth curve?
- 6 How are population ecologists used to model population growth?
What are the factors that limit the growth of population?
Limitations to population growth are either density-dependant or density-independent. Density-dependent factors include disease, competition, and predation. Density-dependant factors can have either a positive or a negative correlation to population size.
What factors limit animal population growth?
In the natural world, limiting factors like the availability of food, water, shelter and space can change animal and plant populations. Other limiting factors, like competition for resources, predation and disease can also impact populations.
What factors allow a population of a species to grow to a certain size and how they relate to carrying capacity?
Biotic factors that a population needs include food availability. Abiotic factors may include space, water, and climate. The carrying capacity of an environment is reached when the number of births equal the number of deaths. A limiting factor determines the carrying capacity for a species.
What limits growth in the exponential growth model?
In the real world, with its limited resources, exponential growth cannot continue indefinitely. Exponential growth may occur in environments where there are few individuals and plentiful resources, but when the number of individuals becomes large enough, resources will be depleted, slowing the growth rate.
Limiting factors of different kinds can interact in complex ways to produce various patterns of population growth. Some populations show cyclical oscillations, in which population size changes predictably in a cycle. All populations on Earth have limits to their growth.
How is the growth rate of a population determined?
The growth rate of a population is largely determined by subtracting the death rate, D, (number organisms that die during an interval) from the birth rate, B, (number organisms that are born during an interval). The growth rate can be expressed in a simple equation that combines the birth and death rates into a single factor: r.
In logistic growth, population expansion decreases as resources become scarce, and it levels off when the carrying capacity of the environment is reached. The logistic growth curve is S-shaped. The logistic model assumes that every individual within a population will have equal access to resources and, thus, an equal chance for survival.
How are population ecologists used to model population growth?
Population ecologists make use of a variety of methods to model population dynamics. An accurate model should be able to describe the changes occurring in a population and predict future changes.