Subject: Biology Grade: 10 Prepared by: Sharo Omar
Chapter Six / Population
Section 6- 1 / Understanding Populations
The human population of the world was about 6 billion in 1996, three times its size in 1900.
During this period of rapid human population growth, populations of many other species have
decreased dramatically. An understanding of populations is crucial to answering these
questions:
Will the human population continue to grow?
Will populations of other species continue to get smaller?
Will other species continue to become extinct?
Properties of population
Population: is a group of organisms that belong to the same species and live in a particular
place at the same time.
What are the properties of population?
Population size.
Population density
Dispersion
Population size: The number of individuals that live
inside the population.
It’s not easy to measure population size directly, why?
If the population is small and made of immobile
organisms, such as plants, it's easy we can measure it
by counting.
While the population is too abundant, too
widespread, too mobile, it's not easy to count them,
scientist must estimate the number of individuals.
How to measure it?
Scientist could count the trees in a smaller section of the
oasis, such as 1 km2 area, and use this value to estimate
the population of the larger area.
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Population density: Measures how crowded a population is.
It is expressed as the number of individuals per unit of an area or volume.
Population density in America: 30 inhabitants /Km
Dispersion: Is the spatial distribution of individuals within the population.
A) Clumped Distribution: Individuals are clustered together. It occurs when resources such as
food and living space is clumped. Or because of special behavior such as zebras gather into
herd.
B) Even Distribution: they are separated by a fairly consistent [Link] results from social
interaction.
C) Random Distribution: each individual’s location is independent of the location of other
individuals in the population. It results from seed dispersal by birds or by wind.
Population dynamics: all Population changes in size and composition overtime. To understand
these changes more knowledge is needed about the population than its size, density and
dispersion.
Birth rate: the number of births occurring in a period of time.
Death rate or mortality rate: the number of deaths in a period of time.
Life expectancy: how long on average an individual is expected to live.
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Age structure: The distribution of individuals
among different ages in a population.
Populations with a high percentage of young
individuals have a greater potential for rapid
growth. But the one with old individuals do
not reproduce.
Which country has a higher number of
young people and lower number of old
people?
Pattern of mortality:
Survivorship curve: a graph of the mortality data of a
population, indicate the probability that individual will
survive to any given age.
There are three types of survivorship curve:
Type I: the likelihood of dying is small until late in
life, when mortality increases rapidly. Ex/ Elephant
and Human.
Type II: the probability of dying doesn't change
throughout life. Ex/ Bird.
Type III: organisms are very likely to die when
young. Ex/ some species of fish
Population regulation:
Limiting factor: an environmental factor that prevents an organism or population from
reaching its full potential or distribution of activity. (Control population size)
Types of limiting factor:
Density independent factor: such as weather, flood and fires, that reduces the number of
populations by same proportion, regardless of the population’s size.
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Density dependent factor: include resource limitations, such as shortage of food or nesting
site, which is triggered by increasing population density.
Carrying capacity: the number of individuals an ecosystem can support with its resources. It
means prevents unlimited growth of populations.
Population fluctuation:
Population fluctuates in their size, which can be caused by:
Environmental change: for example a drought may reduce
a population of deer living in a forest.
Some of them are not linked to environmental changes.
Perils of small population:
The rapidly growth of human population has caused extreme reductions in the populations of
other species and subspecies. For example/ only 200 Siberian tigers are left today, due to
overhunting and habitat destruction.
Why small populations are more vulnerable to extinction?
A. Environmental disturbances such as storms, fires, floods, or disease outbreaks, can kill
off the entire population or leave too few individuals to maintain the population.
B. The members of small populations may be descended from only a few individuals
increasing the likelihood of inbreeding.
Inbreeding: mating with relatives.
What are the disadvantages of inbreeding? They have fewer offspring, more susceptible to
diseases, and short life span
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Chapter Six / Population
Section 6- 2 / Human Population growth
History of Human population growth
Early in the history, the human population grew very slowly. During this time human lived in
small groups and obtained food by hunting animals and gathering roots, berries, nuts, shellfish,
and fruits. This way of life style is known as hunter gather lifestyle.
The low rate of human population growth results from:
1. Small population.
2. High mortality rate especially among infants.
The development of agriculture
The hunter gather lifestyle began to change about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, when human
learned how to domesticate animals and cultivate certain plants for food. This dramatic change
in lifestyle is called the agricultural revolution.
Agriculture greatly increased and stabilized the available food. As a result, human population
started to grow faster.
Population explosion
Human population growth continued through the Middle Ages.
Bubonic plague killed 25% of human population in Europe (1347-1352)
What are the reasons for declining death rate after 1650?
1. Better sanitization and hygiene.
2. Control of disease
3. Increase the availability of food
4. Improved economic conditions.
5. While death rate fell, birth rate remained high.
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Why did human population increase rapidly after World War II? Because of improvement
in health and hygiene in poorer countries.
Population growth today:
Growth rate peaked in the late 1960s at about 0.021 per [Link] many countries the growth rate
has gradually declined slowly to its current level of about 0.014 per capita, Because of the birth
rate has decreased.
Developed countries Developing countries
On average people are better educated. People are poorer than the more
Healthier developed countries.
Live longer than the rest of the world’s Their population grows faster
population.
Growth rate less than 0.01/ capita (slow) Growth rate more than 0.015/capita (fast)