BIO120H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Little Brown Bat, Exponential Growth, Population Ecology
36
BIO120H1 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
36 documents
Document Summary
Population dynamics: how population size changes through time. Exponential and geometric models without density dependence. Incorporating density dependence, effects of limited resources. Adding complexity makes population growth models more realistic. Population: collection of individuals living in an area. Natural resource management (e. g. size of fish stocks in the ocean, abundance of outbreaking insect pests in forests) Health (e. g. monitoring populations of viruses or bacteria in humans) Basic science question: what limits population growth. E. g. population declines in myotis lucifugus bats due to white nose syndrome, hiv population dynamics in humans. Malthus: argued human population cannot grow faster than food production. Ehrlich: argued explosive growth in human population will have catastrophic social and environmental consequences. Predict trajectory of population growth through time (n as a function of t) Time advances in 1 step (t, t+1, etc. ) The challenge is choosing simple but realistic parameters for f. Differential equations: infinitesimally small, concept of limits and calculus.
