Carrying Capacity and Thomas Malthus

Carrying Capacity

Carrying capacity, "K," refers to the number of individuals of a population that can be sustained indefinitely by a given area. At carrying capacity, the population will have an impact on the resources of the given area, but not to the point where the area can no longer sustain the population.

Whitetail Deer Population in America

Whitetail Deer Population in America

Columbus Arrives

Hunting

Intensive Harvesting

Loss of Habitat (Human Expansion

Wildlife Refuges and State/National Parks Established

Hunting Regulations

Just as a population of wildebeest, algae, or deer has a

carrying capacity, so does a human population

Human Carrying Capacity Humans are subject to the same ecological constraints

as any other species (a need for nutrients, water, etc.) Humans also have some features that make them a

unique species:› humans have the capacity to alter their number of offspring,

level of resource consumption and distribution. › While most women around the world could potentially have

the same number of children during their lives, the number they actually have is affected by many factors. Depending upon technological, cultural, economic and educational factors, people around the world have families of different sizes.

› Additionally, unlike other organisms, humans invent and alter technology, which allows them to change their environment.

This makes it hard to determine the Earth’s Human Carrying Capacity

Human Carrying Capacity

Thomas Malthus

England, 2/13/1766-12/23/1834

Wrote “An Essay on the Principal of Population”

Malthusian Catastrophe

Eventually, famine and disease will keep populations in check

Malth

us w

rote

:

That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,

That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase,

That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.

Human Population Growth

Watch the Video:

http://www.ck12.org/earth-science/Overpopulation-and-Over-Consumption/rwa/Past-Present-Future/

Make an Estimate:

At what point will humans outstrip their food source?

How will the world solve this problem? What will life in our town look like when

this happens?