Republic of the Philippines
PALAWAN STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Community Resource and Development
Quezon Campus
LEARNING MODULE IN GE-ELECT: ES
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
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MODULE 2
POPULATION
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Prepared by:
EMMA C. PESITO
Instructor
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MODULE: GE- ES ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
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OVERVIEW
Humans have always been one of the greatest factors in the degradation of
energy resources. The use of resources in the community is vastly affected by the
growth of size of population of living things. Studying the degree of this growth may
serve as a warning of what would happen in the future if living things especially humans
will continue to increase their population dramatically.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
Define population
Identify the factors that affect population growth; and
Internalize the effect of population explosion and its effect on the
environment.
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POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS AND GROWTH
Population growth is the increase in the number of people living in a particular
area. Since populations can grow exponentially, resource depletion can occur rapidly,
leading to specific environmental concerns such as global warming, deforestation and
decreasing biodiversity.
The current population of the Earth is over 7.6 billion people and growing. It could
reach 8 billion by 2025, 9 billion by 2040, and a whopping 11 billion by 2100. Population
is growing rapidly, far outpacing the ability of our planet to support it, given current
practices.
Population is defined as a group of similar species living in a certain place at the
same time.
Organism is a single, living individual in a certain community such as plant, animal and
other living thing.
Together, the populations of all the different species that live together in an area make
up what's called an ecological community/biodiversity. However, the interaction of single
organism causes a population to change.
INTERACTIONS IN COMMUNITIES
NAME DESCRIPTION
Organisms of two species use the same limited resource and have a
1. Competition
negative impact on each other.
A member of one species, predator, eats all or part of the body of a
2. Predation
member of another species, prey.
3. Herbivory A special case of predation in which the prey species is a plant
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4. Mutualism
A longterm, close association between two species in which both part
ners benefit
A longterm, close association between two species in which one bene
5. Commensalism
fits and the other is unaffected
A longterm, close association between two species in which one bene
6. Parasitism
fits and the other is harmed
LEVELS OF INTERACTION
1. Individual level- Ecologists are interested in how organisms react individually in
physiological manner.
2. Population level- The interaction of organisms of the same species is also a great
interest to ecologists since it will open avenues on deeper analysis on the behavior of
every individual member of the population.
3. Communities- The collection of populations at a given locality will also help
ecologists to identify the different variations present in each and every organism.
4. Ecosystem- The community where a single organism live and their interaction with
other factors in the environment are also of great interest to ecologists since they
believed that each and every one in an environment is connected with each other.
Population distribution
Characterized by where organisms are found on earth and its determined by
biotic and/or abiotic factors, it is also where a particular species of organism does occur.
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Dispersion is the spatial distribution of individuals of a population and come in
three general kinds of patterns;
1. Clumped (aggregated dispersion) occurs when individual clumped together.
Figure 1: Clumped dispersion
2. Regular dispersion occurs when individuals are of the same distance from one
another
Figure 2: Regular dispersion
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3. Random dispersion occurs when the habitat of organism is relatively uniform so
individuals are neither repelled nor attracted to one another.
Figure 3: Random dispersion
POPULATION DENSITY
Population density is the number of individuals per area or unit volume (density
is a measure of population size).
Population size- Pertains to the number of individuals in a population.
Factors that determine population size:
1. Natality is the addition of organisms to population through reproduction.
2. Mortality is losing a member of the population due to death. Mortality can decrease
population density.
3. Immigration is the addition of organisms because of movement from one place to
another.
4. Emigration is the loss of individuals that move out of the population.
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HUMAN POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT
The interactions between human population dynamics and the environment have
often been viewed mechanistically. This review elucidates the complexities and
contextual specificities of population-environment relationships in a number of domains.
It explores the ways in which demographers and other social scientists have sought to
understand the relationships among a full range of population dynamics (e.g.,
population size, growth, density, age and sex composition, migration, urbanization, vital
rates) and environmental changes. The chapter briefly reviews a number of the theories
for understanding population and the environment and then proceeds to provide a state-
of-the-art review of studies that have examined population dynamics and their
relationship to five environmental issue areas. The review concludes by relating
population-environment research to emerging work on human-environment systems.
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REFERENCES
Textbooks:
Fundamentals of Environmental Science Textbook, 2015.
Public Participation in EIA: An Environmental Monitoring Manual. Cardenas et al.‟
Environmental Management Bureau.
Strengthening Environmental Impact Assessment Capacity in Asia: A case Study on the
Philippine EIS System. Balagot, Beta and Briones, Nicomedes, Environmental Resource
Management Project, UP Los Baños
Website:
[Link]
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