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Middle school biology - NGSS
Unit 4: Lesson 2
Resources and population growthResources and population growth
In any ecosystem, organisms and populations with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other for limited resources, access to which consequently constrains their growth and reproduction. Growth of organisms and population increases are limited by access to resources. Created by Sal Khan.
Want to join the conversation?
- Has anyone seen how many more antelopes there are compared to the other populations in the pic. I wonder how come, since all three populations in the pic need about the same resources, and there is a limited amount of food and water.(11 votes)
- I predict that the reproduction rate for an antelope is less. On the internet I noticed they can reproduce every season however a zebra for example only reproduces every year. That is a difference. Also, the reproduction rate of how many offspring will survive might be higher for the antelope.(7 votes)
- Has anyone seen how many more antelopes there are compared to the other populations in the pic.(3 votes)
- has anyone seen how many more antelopes there are compared to the other populations in the pic.(2 votes)
- que habia atras(0 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] So we have a
picture here of these animals at a watering hole. And my question to you is why
don't we see more animals? There's clearly enough
space for more animals, and we also know that if we focus on any one of these
populations, say zebra, that every one zebra can have
far more than one offspring in their lifetime. And that not only that, but those offspring can
then have offspring, and so on and so forth. So it seems like over time, these zebra should just be
able to keep multiplying until they fill up all of this land, similar for the buffalo, similar for the antelope. Why don't we see that? Pause this video and think about that. So let's start by thinking
about what any organism, or a population of organisms, or a community of
populations need to survive. Most animals that live on the
surface, like these animals, need air, especially oxygen. Plants need carbon dioxide from the air. They need water. They need a source of energy,
which I will call food, or I could say it's energy here, because it's not always
in the form of food as we might recognize it. And I guess if we think really basically, they need space in which to exist. Now, as I mentioned, there seems to be a lot of
space here for the animals, so that doesn't seem to be the resource that is limiting their growth. So let's rule that out here. Now, it's also clear that
it seems like there's a fairly large amount of air here, more than enough air for
these populations to grow, so that doesn't seem to be a resource that's somehow putting
a maximum on how many of these organisms there are. It does not look like a limited resource, or a limiting resource. Now, what about water? Well, water does seem interesting here, because this watering hole does not seem like it's very deep. It does not seem like
there's a lot of water here. So this one could be what we
would call a limited resource that is limiting population. Maybe if they had more and more offspring, there just wouldn't be enough water for any member of a population, and then of course the
populations would be competing with each other as well, because they all need
the same water to drink. Now, what about food? Well, you might recognize that zebra, or antelope, or buffalo, they tend to graze on grasses, and there are some grasses over here, but we also see that a
lot of the grass is dead or dried out, and there's just a lot
of areas with dirt here. So it looks like the food and energy is also a limiting resource. And we have to remind
ourselves there's populations of different types of grasses, and why aren't they spreading more? Well, from the perspective of a plant, it looks like the air and
space is for sure abundant, and even energy in the form of sunlight is abundant based on this picture, so it's probably water
is the limited resource, which is keeping us
from having more plants and grasses in this picture. We can imagine a scenario
in which it rains a lot. There's a lot of water, water is abundant, then all of the different
types of populations of grasses are able to expand, and then there's more
than enough food and water for these animals to keep reproducing. In that case, space might become an issue. But the important thing to realize here is that all organisms need
resources in order to survive and in order to multiply and reproduce. Populations of many different
species are often competing for those resources. Like the water here, that will tend to put a limit on how much these populations can grow. And the limit on one
population can affect another. As we said, if you had more water, you could have more grass, which will allow them
for more food and energy for these other populations.