Chapter 8 Essential Questions
1. What 4 factors affect population change?
2. Write the equation that shows how birth rates, death rates, immigration, and
emigration relate to population growth.
3. What is biotic potential?
4. What are the characteristics of a population with a high intrinsic growth rate?
5. What are environmental resistance and carrying capacity?
6. How do biotic potential and environmental resistance interact to determine
carrying capacity?
7. List the factors that can alter an area’s carrying capacity. What is the minimum
viable population size for a population?
8. Distinguish between exponential and logistic growth of a population.
9. How can a population overshoot its carrying capacity?
10. What are the consequences of overshooting carrying capacity?
11. Distinguish between density-dependent and density-independent factors that
affect a population.
12. Distinguish between stable, irruptive, irregular, and cyclic forms of population
change.
13. List the characteristics of the following populations:
a. r-selected species
b. K-selected species
14. Under what conditions would you be most likely to find r and K selected species?
15. What is a survivorship curve and how is it used?
16. List the 3 types of survivorship curve and describe the life cycle of a organism on
that curve.
17. What is conservation biology?
18. What are the principles of sustainability?