Sponsor Area

Organisms And Populations

Question
CBSEENBI12001130

How does biotic potential, environmental resistance and carrying capacity affect population growth ?

Solution
(i) Biotic potential is the maximum reproductive capacity of an organism under optimum environmental conditions. If the biotic potential is high then the populaltion growth rate is increased.

(ii) Environmental resistance. The factors such as shortage of food, disease, predation, environmental natural calamities which impose a check on population size constitute environmental resistance. Environmental resistance decreases the rate of population growth.

(iii) Carrying capacity. It is a measure of the feeding capacity of an environment or ecosystem for a population of a species under a given set of conditions. If the population reaches its carrying capacity then the no further growth of the pooulation takes place.