Carrying Capacity
The number of organisms of one
species that an environment can support
indefinitely.
What is Carrying Capacity?
10 billion people is the uppermost population of humans that the environment can support indefinitely
CARRYING CAPACITY HUMANS = 10 billion
CARRYING CAPACITY HUMANS = 10 billion
What does this look like in a graph?
When a population is experiencing exponential growth, it is growing faster and faster and faster as time goes on. On the graph, the more vertical the line, the faster the population is growing.
Now, look at the logistic growth graph. What are some similarities and differences between the two graphs? Hopefully, you noticed that the first part of the logistic growth graph looks just like the first part of the exponential growth graph. The biggest difference, however, is that the line in the logistic growth graph changes direction and begins to level off as it nears the carrying capacity. That means that the main difference between exponential and logistic growth is that logistic growth takes into account carrying capacity.
Now, look at the logistic growth graph. What are some similarities and differences between the two graphs? Hopefully, you noticed that the first part of the logistic growth graph looks just like the first part of the exponential growth graph. The biggest difference, however, is that the line in the logistic growth graph changes direction and begins to level off as it nears the carrying capacity. That means that the main difference between exponential and logistic growth is that logistic growth takes into account carrying capacity.
Limiting factors of a population
These are factors that affect population size and dynamics, They can be sorted into human and natural factors. They can also be sorted into density dependent and density independent factors.
Human examples:
hunting
deforestation
Natural examples:
predation
parasitism
competition for food
natural disasters
weather changes
Click the link below to understand the difference between density dependent and density independent
Human examples:
hunting
deforestation
Natural examples:
predation
parasitism
competition for food
natural disasters
weather changes
Click the link below to understand the difference between density dependent and density independent