- Question: How do humans affect the Earth’s ecosystems? - Human population growth limits the resources available to other organisms and affects ecosystem level processes such as chemical cycling. - Review: Exponential growth is the geometric increase of a population that has access to unlimited resources. - The graph on the far left charts human population growth over time. Currently in many countries, the human population growth approaches an exponential curve. Eventually, human population change will be affected by limited resources and approach carrying capacity (graph on immediate left).

- Review: eutrophicationis the nutrient enrichment of a lake or a stream that causes a change in the lake’s community. It sometimes occurs during the process of ecological succession. - Eutrophication can also result from the runoff of fertilizer or the addition of sewage. An increased residential use of phosphate enriched detergents resulted in the eutrophication of Lake Erie. The nutrients upset the existing community balance, causing algae blooms. Algae use large quantities of oxygen vital to other organisms. - When the algae die, the action of detritivores depletes the oxygen supply further. Eventually, Lake Erie was declared dead. When phosphate-free detergent was used instead, the lake began to improve. Certain native fish and invertebrates still have not repopulated the lake.

14.11.1 The Effects of Human Population Growth: Lake Eutrophication Flashcards by Irina Soloshenko

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14.11.1 The Effects of Human Population Growth: Lake Eutrophication Flashcards

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