What are examples of limits on population growth?
1 Answer
Some examples of limits to population growth include energy available and absolute area.
Explanation:
Some examples of limits to population growth include energy available and absolute area. Other examples include disease, competition, human disturbances, access to water, etc.
Population growth of any organism (humans, plants, animals, fungi, and so forth) is limited by the amount of energy available. For example, if we have a population of wolves, that population is ultimately limited by the amount of prey in their habitat. The pack of wolves grows and grows until eventually there is not enough food to feed all of them. Some adults wolves may not consume enough energy to reproduce, some may produce fewer cubs than previous litters, or more wolf cubs are born than there is food for, so some die.
Another limiting factor is physical space. There needs to be enough physical space for the population to sleep, hunt/feed, move around, and so forth. Think of a population of humans that lives on an island. Even assuming unlimited food from the ocean, the population cannot grow indefinitely because there is physically not enough space to put all of those people.
Carrying capacity is related to the idea of population growth and is worth reading about.
