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How do we Know that the Carrying Capacity has been Reached?
There is a very practical way to know if the carrying capacity
for food resources has been met: notice how many people are going hungry
because there is no more food to be had.
Responses of the population as a whole and groups within
the population will respond in a variety of ways. Some possibilities
are these.
- People will eat less than they need to stay healthy so that
what food there is will be shared.
- People will fight others for the food available, even killing whole
groups of other people.
- People will eat animals and plants that they do not normally eat.
- People will die from hunger.
- People will try to leave the area, to move to where there is food.
Meanwhile, the population will be under tremendous stress due to constant
hunger or worry about finding food for the next meal. Tempers will
flair, and negative social behaviors will increase. Bodies weakened by
hunger and malnutrition will be more prone to disease, accident and stress-related
inherited conditions.
As the deaths from hunger, disease, accident, and other causes increase,
the population size will decrease. Often, the decrease in population
results in enough food for those that are left.
When a population
is close to its carrying capacity, the conditions of enough and not enough
cycle back and forth: vascillating above and below the actual carrying
capacity value. The balance is precarious, with the threat
of famine constantly looming.
Each of the possible responses listed above has a range of possible consequences. Often
the full range of responses is taken by the population as different groups
respond in different ways. Furthermore, each surviving group must face a future of cycling through times of plenty, times of adequate food, and times of scarcity; many groups will change their responses, reacting differently with each cycle.
Keep reading--page
3; or stay on this page, there's more .
Read about global warming -- Essays 1, 2
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Food and Society, a Kellog Foundation
Articles on Feeding the World's Population
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Teachable Moments
Ask students about feeding a mother cat and her kittens.
Pose this problem from page 1: You have 2 pet cats, one of which has 5 kittens. You have 3 cans of cat food left and no money to buy more. You do not let your cat out of the house. What do you think will happen with the cats tomorrow? One week from now? One month from now?
Pose this problem: Ask younger students to think about what happens when the kittens are well fed for a few days, but then the cat food starts to run out and there is not enough to go around. If you start giving a little less food to the cats each day, what will happen? Each day you give a bit less than the day before. What will happen the first day? Every day for a week? Will the cats share equally? Will the kittens? Will one cat go hungry while another eats enough or even too much?
Pose this second problem: At the end of one week, it is payday, and more food is bought at the grocers. The cats are all feed the normal amount of food again. Will the cats behave any differently than before they ever went hungry?
Closure: The cats are now well fed and they do not have to worry about having enough to eat anymore.
You can relate the answers to various concepts in ecology as applied to carrying capacity and resources.
Teachable Moment #2: Older Students
Ask older students about the children in war-torn nations of Africa.
Pose this problem: If the developing nations in Africa had enough food to eat, would there be war?
You can relate the answers to various concepts in ecology as applied to carrying capacity and resources.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate of many merchants. Even so, the opinions expressed are my own, and I do not speak for the merchant. Being an affiliate, however, does mean that the possibility of compensation does exist.
--Valerie
Essay by Valerie Coskrey (C)2006; Revised 2009; All Rights Reserved.
This page first posted 12/12/06/ and revised 11/18/09.