北京邮电大学考博英语真题每日一练阅读理解及其答案.pdfVIP

中国考博辅导首选学校 北京邮电大学考博英语真题每日一练阅读理解及其答案 AsGilbertWhite,Darwin,andothersobserved longago,allspecies appear to have the innate capacity to increase their numbers from generation to generation. The task for ecologists istountangle the environmental and biological factors that hold this intrinsic capacity for population growth in check over the longrun. The great variety of dynamicbehaviors exhibitedby differentpopulationmakes this task more difficult: some populations remain roughly constant from year to year; others exhibit regular cycles of abundance and scarcity; still others vary wildly, with outbreaks and crashes that are in some cases plainly correlated with the weather, and in other cases not. To imposesomeorderon thiskaleidoscopeofpatterns,one school of thought proposes dividing populations into two groups. These ecologists posit that the relatively steady populations have “density-dependent” growth parameters; that is, rates of birth, death,andmigrationwhich dependstronglyonpopulationdensity.The highly varying populations have “density-independent” growth parameters,with vitalratesbuffeted by environmental events; these rates fluctuate in a way that is wholly independent of population density. This dichotomy has its uses, but it can cause problems if taken too literally. For one thing, no population can be driven entirely by density-independent factors all the time. No matter how severely 中国考博辅导首选学校 orunpredictablybirth, death,andmigrationratesmaybefluctuating around their long-term averages, if there were no density-dependent effects, the population would, in the long run, either increase or decrease without bound (barringa miracle by which gains and losses canceled exactly). Put another way, it may be that on average 99 percent of all deaths ina population arise from density-independent causes, and only one percent from f