BIOL1120

POPULATION GROWTH
20 Points
(3 points for uploading to ePortfolio AND providing a Gen Ed reflection)

Name ANTHONY LORANCE

Thomas Malthus on Population by Matt Rosenberg:

In 1798, a 32 year-old British economist anonymously published a lengthy pamphlet criticizing the views
of the Utopians who believed that life could and would definitely improve for humans on earth. The
hastily written text, An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of
Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers, was
published by Thomas Robert Malthus.

Thomas Malthus argued that because of the natural human urge to reproduce human population increases
geometrically (1, 2, 4, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc.). However, food supply, at most, can only increase
arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, etc.). Therefore, since food is an essential component to human life,
population growth in any area or on the planet, if unchecked, would lead to starvation. However, Malthus
also argued that there are preventative checks and positive checks on population that slow its growth and
keep the population from rising exponentially for too long, but still, poverty is inescapable and will
continue.

Thomas Malthus' example of population growth doubling was based on the preceding 25 years of the
brand-new United States of America. Malthus felt that a young country with fertile soil like the U.S.
would have one of the highest birth rates around. He liberally estimated an arithmetic increase in
agricultural production of one acre at a time, acknowledging that he was overestimating but he gave
agricultural development the benefit of the doubt.

According to Thomas Malthus, preventative checks are those that affect the birth rate and include
marrying at a later age (moral restraint), abstaining from procreation, birth control, and homosexuality.
Positive checks are those, according to Thomas Malthus, that increases the death rate. These include
disease, war, disaster, and finally, when other checks don't reduce population, famine.

Bell Peppers are Taking Over the World!

Geometric/Exponential Growth - Growth in which some quantity (e.g. population size), increases by a
fixed percentage of the whole in a given time - will yield a J-shaped curve.

No population can grow exponentially indefinitely. In the real world, a rapidly growing population
reaches some size limit imposed by a shortage of one or more limiting factors (environmental resistance
factors = food, shelter, predators etc.). These factors always limit population growth in nature. Any
population growing exponentially starts out slowly and then goes through a rapid, unrestricted
exponential growth phase. If plotted, this growth will yield a J-shaped growth curve. However, because
of environmental resistance factors, growth tends to level off once the carrying capacity (K) of the area is
reached. This usually results in an S-shaped curve. Carrying capacity is the maximum population size of
a species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities
available in the environment.
Applying these concepts to humans.....humans are not exempt from these environmental resistance
factors. To date, we have increased food production and used large amounts of energy and matter
resources to provide for the growing population. However, there is growing concern about how long we
will be able to keep providing for the growing population on a planet with a finite size and resources
again, termed the carrying capacity.

This activity is designed to assist you in understanding exponential population growth and how quickly an
uncontrolled population can surpass the carrying capacity of a given area (e.g. earth)

What you will need: A bell pepper (or other vegetable with many seeds) and a spreadsheet program
(e.g. Excel).

1. Count the number of seeds in a bell pepper (or other vegetable with seeds that can be easily counted).

2. Assume that each of these seeds is planted and that each plant produces a single pepper plant with the
same number of seeds. That is, no death or mortality occurs.

3. Calculate how many pepper plants will be produced each year for five years and graph your results.
The number the first year should reflect the number of seeds the pepper you started with produced.

4. Make a graph showing the population levels of pepper plants over a five year period if all peppers
seeds produced grew into mature pepper plants. The years should be on the x-axis and number of plants
on the y-axis. Note your graph should not be a straight line! You will lose points if your graph is not
accurate.

Answer the following questions and provide your graph:

1. How many seeds were in your initial pepper? This represents the first generation. (18 seeds)

2. How many plants were alive in your pepper population after only 5 generations? (1156831381426170
seeds)

3. Describe your graph in detail. Be sure to include whether it represents logistic or exponential growth.
Make sure you provide your graph!
My graph represent the exponential growth of a population of bell pepper plants based on the one bell
pepper I had in my refrigerator. it started with 18 seeds and by the end of 5 years you end up with more
than 100 trillion plants. Unfortunately I could not figure out how to get my graph to show the lowwer
number range in the graph so the curve is not well displayed.
Year
s # of Seeds
1 18
2 324
3 104,976
4 11,019,960,576
5 1,156,831,381,426,170
 # of Seeds

# of Seeds
# of Seeds Trend line
0 5 10

Years

4. Make a list and describe four or five environmental factors that might limit natural or wild populations
(not necessarily pepper plant or human populations).

Five factors that can inhibit population size for any organism are Predation, dieses, draught, and
weather.

5. If a population were subjected to some of these environmental factors for a considerable length of
time, would you expect to see any changes in the population? Based on the information provided above,
explain your answer (do not be too brief!).

Any one of the listed above would cause dramatic changes in the population growth of an organism. a
prolonged drought may along with killing off a chunk of the population, may also encourage the
organisms not to procreate as much due too harsh conditions. This will cause the population to decrease
from its high level until it plateaus at a lower level that can be sustained. With a high population you also
increase the number of predators. If the number of predators outgrows the prey population then the
population of the prey will be high, then plateau, and eventually decline dramatically (possibly extinct).
Prolonged dieses will dramatically decrease the population, until a group of the population that is less
effected by the dieses starts to grow the population. Finally the weather can dramatically effect
populations. In the case of the bell pepper one random snow storm in the growing season can kill off the
majority of the population. On the converse an excess of rain can possibly encourage more growth
making the population even greater.
I do Believe that this meets the covers the general education requirements of SLCC, Because It forces you
to think critically about the factors that affect survival of a population. It forces you to think
hypothetically, and it crosses subject matter. I had to relearn how to make use the functions in excell, and
create a graph. I had to do some of the math myself even. In this way I think it covers the general
education that I will need in my future.