population ecology: carrying capacity and ecological footprint

Question 1

What is carrying capacity?

Answer 1

Carrying capacity is the maximum population that can be supported in an environment without causing severe degradation to the environment.

Question 2

What happens when the carrying capacity is reached?

Answer 2

When the carrying capacity is reached, resources are no longer sufficient to support the population, leading to potential negative effects.

Question 3

What effects can reaching carrying capacity have on a population?

Answer 3

Reaching carrying capacity can cause an increase in death rates and a fall in birth rates until population numbers stabilize.

Question 4

Can you give an example of how carrying capacity affects populations?

Answer 4

Famines due to lack of food can lead to deaths and lower fertility rates, which helps bring the population back within the environment’s carrying capacity.

Question 5

What is an ecological footprint?

Answer 5

An ecological footprint is a measurement of how much of the Earth’s resources are used in relation to the amount of resources available.

Question 6

In what units is ecological footprint measured?

Answer 6

Ecological footprint is measured in global hectares (gha).

Question 7

What does 1 gha represent?

Answer 7

1 gha represents the overall annual amount of resource use per hectare of productive area available.

Question 8

What does it mean if an ecological footprint is larger than 1?

Answer 8

If an ecological footprint is larger than 1, it means that consumption exceeds the available resources on Earth, which is unsustainable.

Question 9

What is the estimated global ecological footprint?

Answer 9

The estimated global ecological footprint is 1.7 gha, meaning we are consuming 0.7 Earths per year more than is available.