Earth’s Fluctuating Populations
1. Human population growth is one of Earth’s most pressing problems. What are some of the issues with our almost 7 billion person population?
2. What is population ecology?
Dynamic biological processes influence population density, dispersion, and demography
3. Define a population. What does this definition indicate about the population’s interactions etc…?
4. Contrast the terms density and dispersion.
5. Density is not static. What animal activities influence density?
6. Why are variations in local density so important to study?
7. What do environmental conditions have to do with variations in density?
8. What is demography?
9. When a life table is represented graphically it creates survivorship curves.
a. Draw a graph which shows the “idealized” survivorship curves.
b. Explain why each of the graphs (I, II, and III) are shaped the way they are.
c. Under what conditions would you expect to find each type of curve?
10. Why do demographers study females of a species so closely?
The exponential model describes population growth in an idealized, unlimited environment
11. Use a single bacterium to describe the exponential model of population growth.
12. Where is exponential growth by a plant population more likely—on a newly formed volcanic island or in a mature, undisturbed rain forest? Why?
The logistic growth model includes the concept of carrying capacity
13. What is carrying capacity? How does it interact with the exponential growth pattern you just studied?
a. Draw a graph of this logistic growth model.
14. Compare a K-selected species with an r-selected species.
a. Under what conditions would you expect to find each
