Anna Roberts

BIOL 1120-F16
October 19, 2016
Population Growth

1. The first generation, the first apple, contained a total of seven

seeds.
2. After five generations, 16,807 apples were alive in the
population.
3. The graph contains the information about the apple population.
Starting with the first generation that contained seven seeds, the
population multiplies itself by seven for each coming year,
rapidly increasing the amount of seeds and plants. The second
generation contains 49 seeds, the third has 343, the fourth has
2,401, and the fifth generation has 16,807.
4. Environmental factors that could limit the population growth:
Light intensity
Temperature of soil or air
Water sources or water in the air
Nutrition/food sources
Topography changes from natural disasters
5. The various environmental factors that could limit population
growth could potentially have intense affects on the growth of apple
seeds. For example, apple trees need full exposure sunlight and a
chillier temperature in their climate to grow successfully. If the air
became too hot due to something like global warming, or if they
were planted too late in the season (near winter), they would not
receive enough sunlight, thus not growing successfully. If there were
to be a drought, apple trees would suffer because they need moist
soil; however, they also cannot be overwatered, so if a climate had
large amounts of rainfall, they would suffer from that as well. Apple
trees could probably survive a couple weeks of heavy unpredicted
rainfall, but would ultimately die from a long-term increase in
precipitation. The population would decrease. As the chart shows,

one apple seed can create an enormous population; the death of

one apple tree that contains hundreds and hundreds of seeds can
result in the loss of thousands of apples.