1 / 13

Population – Limiting Factors

Population – Limiting Factors. LIMITING FACTOR. All living things need food, water, shelter and space to survive. As long as organisms have these things available, their population will continue to grow.

ajackie
Download Presentation

Population – Limiting Factors

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Population – Limiting Factors

  2. LIMITING FACTOR • All living things need food, water, shelter and space to survive. As long as organisms have these things available, their population will continue to grow. • However, populations cannot grow forever. Some form of environmental resistance will stop the population’s growth. • The form of environmental resistance is called a LIMITING FACTOR since it limits the population.

  3. POPULATION INDEPENDENT FACTORS • Population independent factors can affect a population no matter what it’s size is. • Factors include: • Natural Disasters • Temperature • Sunlight • Human Activity

  4. NATURAL DISASTERS • Drought, floods, hurricanes, fires, etc. • For example: A severe drought lower the water levels of a lake decrease its resources. Therefore, the fish population would decrease.

  5. TEMPERATURE • Temperature influences the activity and growth of organisms. • Temperature also determines which type of organisms can live in a lake. Usually, the higher the water temperature, the greater the activity in a lake. • If temperatures vary too much out of this range the species will either die or move to a different location.

  6. SUNLIGHT • Sunlight feeds plants. • No sunlight = No food!

  7. HUMAN ACTIVITIES • Human activities can affect population size. • Building river dams block fish from spawning. • Cutting down forests to build houses ecosystems. • Pollution of oceans destroys ecosystem.

  8. POPULATION DEPENDENT FACTORS • Population dependent factors can only affect a population when it reaches a certain size. • Factors include: • Competition • Predation • Disease • Crowding

  9. COMPETITION • Resources are limited in a habitat so organisms must compete for food, water, space, and shelter. • For example, both northern pike and walleye prey on yellow perch and so they compete for the same food source. • However, this competition is only true when the populations of northern pike and walleye have high numbers OR the population of yellow perch has a low numbers.

  10. PREDATION • Predation occurs when the population size of predators is high. • The predators will consume their prey and increase their own population. • However, the population of the prey will decrease. • On the other hand, the lack of predation (when the population size of predators is low) will cause problems for the prey’s population. • When there are few predators, the prey’s population increases very quickly and this can lead to the depletion of resources.

  11. DISEASE • Disease in a population increases with the large populations. • High densities makes it easier for parasites to find hosts and spread the disease. • A parasite is an organism that lives in or on another organism (called a host) to get nourishment.

  12. CROWDING • Crowding only occurs in large populations. • Over-crowding can cause depletion of resources (food, water, shelter, etc.) and increase in disease spreading.

  13. CARRYING CAPACITY • The largest number of individuals of one species that an ecosystem can support OVER TIME. • If a population begins to exceed the environment’s carrying capacity, some individuals will not have enough resources. • The could die or be forced to move elsewhere.

More Related