Merissa Nay Dever

Biology 1120: Conservation Biology

Instructor: Kristen Taylor
Summer 2014
POPULATION GROWTH
1. How many seeds were in your initial pepper? This represents the first generation.
I used a red bell pepper for my population growth assignment. It had 29 seeds, and tasted delicious.
2. How many plants were alive in your pepper population after only 5 generations?
After only 5 short years of growth, I ended up with an astonishing 20,511,149 red pepper plants.
3. Describe your graph.
My graph shows the effects of exponential population growth of a red bell pepper plant that started
with 29 seeds and multiplied every year with that same number of seeds, under the assumption that
there was zero mortality. I used a logarithmic scale for the Y-axis, to help show the visual magnitude
of the growth rate when there are not any underlying environmental contributions that negatively
affect the population. See Figure 1.
4. Make a list of five environmental factors that might limit natural or wild populations (not necessarily
pepper plant or human populations).
Five environmental factors that might limit populations are pollution, overexploitation, disease, habit
fragmentation, and climate changes.
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?
If the red bell pepper plant population (or any population for that matter) was exposed to any of
the environmental factors listed above, the growth of the population would surely change. Adding a
climate change to the equation would harm and possibly kill off the population if it did not have the
means to adapt. Populations in some areas would be able to adapt to the climate change and may
have some positive outcomes like an extended growing period. Other populations may not be able
to adapt and could possibly die off. The populations could be affected by mass flooding due to rising
water levels, they could suffer from infectious disease due to a rise in heat, or even suffer heat
stroke and die.
Pollution factors can harm the water and air quality, which can have negative consequences for the
population and can stop them from reaching the full growth level shown in the graph.
If the population was exposed to overexploitation it would not reach its maximum potential for
growth. The population would be drastically reduced due to overuse and could possibly face
extinction.
Disease can be brought on by habitat fragmentation, which can cause serious harm to a population.
When the habits are fragmented it can cause populations of wild animals to become closer to the
domestic animal populations. The domestic animal diseases can be transferred to the wild animals
who are not equipped to fight them off. Habitat fragmentation can also have negative population
effects like loss of interior habitats, population division, and restricted access to food and water. All
of the above factors will keep the population from unlimitedly growing.

Figure 1. Exponential growth of a red bell pepper plant over a 5 year span, with a zero mortality rate.