环境科学概论教学课件（第四讲）.ppt

广东工业大学 环境科学与工程学院 * Population Characteristics A Population Growth Curve Carrying Capacity Human Population Growth CHAPTER FOURPopulation Characteristics and Issues * Background Thomas Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) at some point in time an expanding population must exceed supply of prerequisite natural resources, i.e., population increases exponentially resulting in increasing competition for means of subsistence, food, shelter, etc. This concept has been termed the Struggle for Existence. Demography * Charles Darwin The origin of species (1859) Survival of the Fittest * Define the following characteristics of a population: natality, mortality, sex ratio, age distribution, reproductive potential, and spatial distribution. Describe how a growing population goes through lag, exponential growth, and stable equilibrium phases. Describe how the carrying capacity for a population in a region is determined by environmental resistance. List the four categories under which limiting factors can be classified. Explain why humans are subject to the same forces of environmental resistance as are other organisms. Explain how human population growth is influenced by social, theological. philosophical, and political thinking. OBJECTIVES * Population: a group of individuals of the same species inhabiting a particular area at a specific time. * How can we recognize so many individuals crowded in an area? zebra butterfly Population * Population Characteristics Natality: refers to the number of individuals added to the population through reproduction. Mortality: refers to the number of deaths in a population over a particular time period. * population births immigrants deaths emigrants gains losses * age structure and sex ratio Age distribution: the number of individuals in each age class as a ratio of one class to another. Growing stationary declining * Label the three age structure graphs shown below.