Ecological Leadership Now that you have covered the most important topics in regards to Bioregions, please choose a topic (population growth, biodiversity, environmental threats, animal/plant extincti

Applying Population & Community Ecology

Jennifer Bacuylima

St. Thomas University

BSC-2064-OL1

Applying Population & Community Ecology

The world's population is increasing exponentially, meaning that the population will grow at a faster rate as time passes. When the population increases by a fixed percentage per time, then such a rate of growth is called exponential growth, and it leads to a rapid increase. For instance, in 1930, it took 123 years to increase from one billion humans to two billion, but by 1999, it only required 24 years (Clark et al., 2018). This rapid growth is especially due to human innovation, particularly in agriculture, technology, and public health, which have the effect of expanding the Earth's carrying capacity. These advances make it such that humans can no longer be limited by density-dependent regulation to restrict population growth, as in the case of food scarcity or disease. Sadly, this growth comes at a cost to the environment. Damage to ecosystems is at least partly due to human activities such as climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain. While the growth rate might become slower in the future, the global population is still projected to increase, likely resulting in problems such as resource depletion and/or food shortages. Unchecked growth has long-term implications of environmental collapse and reduced Earth's ability to sustain human life.

Reference

Clark, M.A., Douglas, M., & Choi, J. (2018). Biology (2nd ed.). OpenStax Creative Commons