lol - lost again, eh Syamasu? From my post #59 in that thread:
Quetzal writes:
Okay, now it gets complicated. Obviously, this simplified formula doesn’t apply to real-world populations, since it assumes that resources, environment, etc are not factors. Are you familiar with the term "maximum carrying capacity" (I’ll ignore effective carrying capacity for this discussion, since that is particular to a specific environment and is based on limiting factors inherent in that specific ecosystem)? Carrying capacity is the maximum number of individuals (population size) that the environment can support over a relatively long period of time. The carrying capacity of any environment is determined by the limiting factors that exist in that environment. Any environment with fewer resources will have a lower carrying capacity than one that has greater resources for the population under study. Effectively, carrying capacity places an upper ceiling on the number of individuals a particular ecosystem can support.
How carrying capacity for a given ecosystem is derived is complex, but can basically be described as density dependent limiting factors. Density dependent factors basically reflect the fact that no ecosystem has unlimited resources — at some point the amount of food available to each individual is more and more limited as population increases, there are fewer nesting or den sites to go around, activity by natural enemies increases, risk of disease increases etc. There are other factors that can effect population grown, known as density independent factors which include things like weather, climate change, season habitat variation, etc — factors that effect the whole population regardless of numbers of individuals in the population.
I then showed mathematically how, in a real-world population, as the population approaches the carrying capacity of a particular habitat, the population growth slows, then either stabilizes or reverses.
I excluded nothing. I showed quite explicitly how populations are effected by density dependent factors in the environment. Remembering that the post was related to showing empirical and mathematic support for the first two assumptions from the OP in that thread:
"1. If all the offspring that organisms can produce were to survive and reproduce, they would soon overrun the earth.
2. As a consequence, there is competition to survive and reproduce, in which only a few individuals succeed in leaving progeny."
I would say that your total inability to even understand the explanation given in post #59, let alone your utter incapability of addressing - let alone substantively responding to or rebutting - the points raised merely demonstrates once again (for any who remain unconvinced) your complete and total cluelessness when it comes to any subject in biology.
[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 08-19-2003]
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