Is the Human Population Too Large?
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Problem 1
Add labels to the figure that follows, which illustrates the predicted pattern of changes in human population growth rates when death rates fall.
Problem 2
Explain why a decrease in population growth rate is expected as a nonhuman population approaches carrying capacity.
Problem 3
When individuals in a population are evenly spaced throughout their habitat, their dispersion is termed as . a. clumped; b. uniform; c. random; d. excessive; e. exponential
Problem 4
A population growing exponentially . a. is stable in size; b. adds a fixed number of individuals every generation; c. adds a larger number of individuals in each successive generation; d. will likely expand forever; e. will not crashProblem 5
According to the graph shown here, the carrying capacity for fruit flies in the environment of the culture bottle is . a. 0 flies; b. 100 flies; c. 150 flies; d. between 100 and 150 flies; e. impossible to determine
Problem 6
All of the following are density-dependent factors that can influence population size except . a. weather; b. food supply; c. waste concentration in the environment; d. infectious disease; e. supply of suitable habitat for survival
Problem 7
In contrast to nonhuman populations, human population growth rates have begun to decline due to . a. voluntarily increasing death rates; b. voluntarily decreasing birth rates; c. involuntary increases in death rates; d. involuntary decreases in birth rates; e. density-dependent factorsProblem 8
Populations that rely on stored resources are likely to overshoot the carrying capacity of the environment and consequently experience a(n) . a. demographic momentum; b. cultural carrying capacity; c. decrease in death rates; d. population crash; e. exponential growthProblem 9
The current carrying capacity of Earth for the human population may have been inflated by . a. demographic momentum; b. the tendency for women to want to control family size; c. an artificially low number of density-independent factors; d. our use of fossil fuels; e. recent population crashes
Problem 10
Demographic momentum refers to the tendency for . a. low population growth rates to continue to decline; b. high population growth rates to continue to increase; c. populations to continue to grow in number even when growth rates reach zero; d. populations to continue to grow in number even when women are reducing the number of children they bear; e. women to continue to have children even though they no longer wish to
