Question

A population of drosophila exhibits density-independent growth. There are currently 500 individuals and they have an r of 0.7 offspring/individual/day. How many drosophila will there be 6 days from now?

Answer 1

In this problem, we have an exponential growth function of the form

$y=a(1+r)^x$

where

a=500

r=0.7

substitute

$\begin{gathered} y=500(1+0.7)^x \\ y=500(1.7)^x \end{gathered}$

For x=6 days

substitute

$\begin{gathered} y=500(1.7)^6 \\ y=12,069 \end{gathered}$

therefore

The answer is 12,069 drosophila