Biology 1120: Conservation Biology

Instructor: Jessica Berryman

Zoe Wuthrich

POPULATION GROWTH

Table 1

Years Watermelon Seeds

1 378

2 142884

3 54010152

4 20415837460

5 7.17187E+11

Watermelon Seeds TOTAL 737656990874

1000000000000
Value Axis

1000000

1
1 1000000 1000000000000
Value Axis

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1. How many seeds were in your initial pepper? This represents the first generation.
378 SEEDS IN A BABY WATERMELON
2. How many plants were alive in your pepper population after only 5 generations?
7,717,186,558,368
3. Describe your graph.
MY graph shows the exponential growth of watermelon plants over the course of five years without
morality/death.
4. Make a list of five environmental factors that might limit natural or wild populations (not
necessarily pepper plant or human populations).
1. Change in climate 2. Change in a species living quarters. 3. Disease. 4. Low food supply.
5. Invasive species.
5. If a population were subjected to some of these environmental factors for a considerable length
of time, would you expect to see any changes in the population? Based on the information provided
above, explain your answer. BE SPECIFIC – which factors would cause which changes?
I certainly think that there would be a change in the population if any of the environmental factors were
introduced dramatically. If half of the food supply was gone there would be a major starvation which
would change the population drastically. Humans are thrifty and other species can migrate but it would
definitely effect the ecosystem as a whole if a population had to completely migrate to find food to
survive. Same with disease and invasive species, sometimes, we do not have solutions or cures to these.

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