Growth of the Lily Pad Population

Question 1 How many lily pads does it take to fill half of your pond? 2. How many days passed before half of the pond was filled with lily pads? 3. How many more days will pass before the entire pond has been filled To Do 1. Now this time carefully counting up how many lily pads are present in each generation, it may be easier to use circle each generation with a different colour. Use Table I below to keep track of your data. Table I: Lily Pad Population Generation (Number of Days) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2. Now make a graph of your results, using Figure 1 as a guide. Generations should be along the xaxis and total number of lily pads in the population should be on the y-axis. Number of New Lily Pads Number of Lily Pads in the Population

Figure 1A: Exponential Growth Versus Linear Growth Figure 1: Growth Curve for the Lily Pad Population

Exercise 3: Exponential Growth of Populations Background 1. The rate at which the lily pad population started to grow after several days was quite alarming. If you are to keep any of your pond clear, you'll have to cut out more than half of the lily pads out of the pond every day!

2. The graph you have constructed represents exponential growth. It is called a "J-curve". Exponential growth occurs when there no limits to the size to which a population can grow. Food, water, and living space are some of the resources individuals need to live healthfully and to reproduce to their maximum potential. When such resources are unlimited, populations may undergo exponential growth. 3. Some characteristics of exponential growth curves are slow initial growth and then a rapid, dramatic population "explosion" after several generations. 4. There are several factors affecting the shape of the growth curve.

reproductive rate limits on resources: food, water, living space

Question

1. What is the reproductive rate of the lily pads? (Hint: how many "offspring" does each lily pad produce per day?) 2. Is there a maximum number of lily pads that can grow in your pond? Resources and space are typically limited in ecosystems. Exponential growth generally occurs only when the population is very small relative to available resources or very aggressive in taking resources away from other populations. Here is a graph of human population growth on the entire earth from 10,000 B.C. to the present.

Figure 2: World Population Growth, Source, PopExpo Question 8. How would you describe the growth of the human population today? 9. What conditions do you think kept the human population lower and more under control before this century? before now

Background

Exercise 4: Carrying Capacity of the Ecosystem 1. As you may have predicted, there is a maximum number of lily pads that can grow in your pond. This is called the carrying capacity. There are several factors which limit the carrying capacity of any environment. Some of them are:

climate food and water availability physical space disease predators

2. Figure 3 shows what happens to a population when it reaches the carrying capacity of the surrounding environment. This is called an "S curve" because it is roughly shaped like an "S".

Figure 3. "S curve" for a hypothetical population Question 3. Examine the first half of the "S" curve shown in Figure 3 (up to point A). What is the shape of this graph? 4. What happens at point B (after about 13 generations)? 5. What is the carrying capacity of the population recorded in Figure 3 (about how many organisms of this species can be supported in this ecosystem)? 6. What is the carrying capacity for the lily pad population in the pond environment referred to in Exercise II?