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Overpopulation or overabundance is a state in which the population of a species is larger than the carrying capacity of its environment.This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale migration, leading to an overabundant species and other animals in the ecosystem competing for food, space, and resources.
In biology, overabundant species refers to an excessive number of individuals [1] and occurs when the normal population density has been exceeded. Increase in animal populations is influenced by a variety of factors, some of which include habitat destruction or augmentation by human activity, the introduction of invasive species and the reintroduction of threatened species to protected reserves.
The Global Footprint Network purports to be able to measure how much the human economy demands against what the Earth can renew. [13] [14] The Optimum Population Trust (now called Population Matters) has listed what they believe is the overshoot (overpopulation) of a number of countries, based on the above. [15]
Indeed, some analysts claim that overpopulation's most serious impact is its effect on the environment. [142] Some scientists suggest that the overall human impact on the environment during the Great Acceleration , particularly due to human population size and growth, economic growth , overconsumption, pollution , and proliferation of ...
The concern about overexploitation, while relatively recent in the annals of modern environmental awareness, traces back to ancient practices embedded in human history. Contrary to the notion that overexploitation is an exclusively contemporary issue, the phenomenon has been documented for millennia and is not limited to human activities alone.
Population control is the practice of artificially maintaining the size of any population.It simply refers to the act of limiting the size of an animal population so that it remains manageable, as opposed to the act of protecting a species from excessive rates of extinction, which is referred to as conservation biology.
Examples of animal overpopulation caused by introduction of a foreign species abound. In the Argentine Patagonia , for example, European species such as the trout and the deer were introduced into the local streams and forests, respectively, and quickly became a plague, competing with and sometimes driving away the local species of fish and ...
While habitat fragmentation is often associated with its effects on large plant and animal populations and biodiversity, due to the interconnectedness of ecosystems there are also significant effects that it has on the microbiota of an environment. Increased fragmentation has been linked to reduced populations and diversity of fungi responsible ...