Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In a population, carrying capacity is known as the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain, which is determined by resources available. In many classic population models, r is represented as the intrinsic growth rate, where K is the carrying capacity, and N0 is the initial population size.
Besides creating environmental damage, the contamination resulting from leakage of chemicals also affect the health of the local population. [198] Mining companies in some countries are required to follow environmental and rehabilitation codes, ensuring the area mined is returned to close to its original state.
Many studies have tried to estimate the world's sustainable population for humans, that is, the maximum population the world can host. [5] A 2004 meta-analysis of 69 such studies from 1694 until 2001 found the average predicted maximum number of people the Earth would ever have was 7.7 billion people, with lower and upper meta-bounds at 0.65 and 9.8 billion people, respectively.
Most of the exponential human population growth worldwide is occurring in or close to biodiversity hotspots. [6] This may explain why human population density accounts for 87.9% of the variation in numbers of threatened species across 114 countries, providing indisputable evidence that people play the largest role in decreasing biodiversity. [18]
A population ecology concept is r/K selection theory, one of the first predictive models in ecology used to explain life-history evolution. The premise behind the r/K selection model is that natural selection pressures change according to population density. For example, when an island is first colonized, density of individuals is low.
Population and Environment is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on the reciprocal links between population, natural resources, and the natural environment. The journal was established in 1978 as the Journal of Population, obtaining its current title in 1980. [1] The editor-in-chief is Brian Thiede (Penn State University).
Population geography relates to variations in the distribution, composition, migration, and growth of populations. Population geography involves demography in a geographical perspective. [ a ] It focuses on the characteristics of population distributions that change in a spatial context.
In environmental science, a population "overshoots" its local carrying capacity — the capacity of the biome to feed and sustain that population — when that population has not only begun to outstrip its food supply in excess of regeneration, but actually shot past that point, setting up a potentially catastrophic crash of that feeder population once its food populations have been consumed ...