Carrying Capacity and Predator/Prey Interactions

The largest number of individuals that an environment can support long term is...

• carrying capacity

• emigration

• immigration

• population density

What happens if a population grows past its carrying capacity?

• The population keeps growing

• The population starts to die off

• The entire species will go extinct

• The carrying capacity just increases

This may cause a population to increase

• increase of food supply

• removal of predators

• removal of disease

• all of these

What is the carrying capacity of the graph?

• 1000

• 8000

• 800

• 600

What is the carrying capacity of the graph?

• around 500

• more than 800

• less than 300

• around 700

Which of the following would INCREASE the carrying capacity of an ecosystem?

• increase in predators
• disease
• increase in available food
• drought

If a disease destroying barley plants in a field swept through an ecosystem, what would happen to the barley eating bird population in the the field ?

• The bird population would stay the same
• The bird population would infinitely increase
• The bird population would decrease

A scientist was studying a population of fish in a pond over a period of 10 years. He observed that the population increased each year for 3 years, and then remained nearly constant for the rest of the study. The best explanation for this observation is that the population had

• stopped reproducing

• reached carrying capacity

• mutated into a different species

• run out of food and all died

If a population is below its carrying capacity, the population will ___

• decrease

• stay the same

• increase

A population always stays exactly at its carrying capacity.

• True

• False