Question

Engage/Daily Bellringer - The graph provided shows the population of an organism
introduced to a new environment and how the population changed over 60 days. After the
sharp rise, there was a leveling off of the population. What does this indicate? *
Population (No. of Organisms)
0
10 20 30 40 50 60
Time (Days)

Answer 1

Answer:

carrying capacity

Explanation:

The leveling off is an indication of the carrying capacity of the environment.

By definition, the carrying capacity of an environment is the total number of organism of particular species that an environment can support given the resources it has.

When a particular species of organism is introduced into a new environment, it first of all spend some time trying to adjust to this new environment and this time is characterized by little population growth.

After successfully adjusting and getting acclimatized to the new environment, the population of the organism experiences a sharp rise and then levels off as the maximum population size the environment can support based on the resources it has is reached. This jund of population growth is referred to as logistic growth.

The population of the organism fluctuates a little bit around the carrying capacity based on several factors, especially competition for resources.