ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Understanding the Big Three:

Limits, Tolerance, and Population
JS GERMAN JR
Today's Discussion
Learning Outcomes

Understand the connection among the law of

limits, tolerance, and population dynamics
Join in the awareness campaign locally and
globally on the care of Earth, the common home of
all species
Initiate consumer’s awareness in avoidance of too
much consumerism and waste of valuable
resources
Today's Discussion
Topic Outline

Introduction
Limiting Factors vs. Law of Tolerance
Population Structure and Spatial Distribution
Reproductive Strategies and Limiting Factors
Global Human Population
Population Dynamics and Sustainable Goals
Key Takeaways
How many
humans can the
earth really
support?
 A limiting factor is anything that drives a
Limiting Factors population's size and slows or stops it from

and Law of growing

Either biotic or abiotic

Tolerance Usually expressed as a lack of a particular

resource

Carrying capacity is the maximum size of

the population a habitat can support
 Shelford's Law
Limiting Factors The abundance or distribution of an

and Law of organism can be controlled by certain

factors

Tolerance They can tolerate (or survive within) a

certain range of a particular factor, but
cannot survive if there is too much or too
little of the factor
 Population is a group of individuals of the
Population same species that live together in a region

Structure and Population dynamics refers to changes

that are predicted to occur in the members

Spatial of the population

Can be measured in terms of size, age

Distribution structure, and dispersion

Natality, Mortality,
Immigration, and Emmigration
These are the factors affecting the population size.

Natality refers to the number of individuals who

are born alive
Mortality refers to the number of individuals
who die
Immigration is the number of individuals that
enters a population
Emigration is the number of individuals that
move out of a population
Population growth rate refers to the amount by which a population’s size changes in a
given time which may be computed as:

(Birth rate + Immigration) – (Death rate + emigration) = growth rate

Age Structure
It refers to the number of percentage of males and
females in young, middle, and older groups.

Pre-reproductive (ages 0-14) – consisting of

individuals normally too young to have children
Reproductive (ages 15-44) – consisting of
those normally able to have children
Post-reproductive (ages 45 and older) – with
individuals normally too old to have children
The age-sex structure of a
population is often shown as
a population pyramid.

There are specific shapes of

pyramids that tend to be
associated with growing,
stable, and shrinking human
populations
Dispersion
It describes the distribution of individuals within
the population.

Clumped - organisms are clustered for food,

reproduction, and protection
Uniform - organisms are more or less equally
apart
Random - organisms do not interact socially and
has no predictable pattern
 An exponential growth pattern (J curve)
Population occurs in an ideal, unlimited environment
A logistic growth pattern (S curve) occurs
Growth Patterns when environmental pressures slow the rate
of growth
 Population density is the measure of how
Population crowded the population is or the number of

Density
individuals in a given space
For example, the 2019 population density
in the Philippines is 363 people per sq km
calculated on a total land area of 298,170 sq
km
Limiting Factors
Limited factors can either be density-dependent or
density-independent.

Density dependent factors - the effect on each

individual depends on the number of other
individuals present in the same area
Food, predation, disease, migration
Density dependent factors - the effect on each
individual does not depend on the number of
other individuals present in the same area
Natural catastrophes
 r-selected
Reproductive lives in unstable and unpredictable

Strategies environments
produces many offspring with short life-
expectancy
K-selected
lives in more stable environments
few but long-lived offspring
 The structure and species composition of
Ecological communities and ecosystems change in

Succession response to changing environmental conditions

through a process called ecological
succession
Global Human
Population
Environmental Problems
Related to Population Growth
Overpopulation – because of the sharp increase
in the number of people in developing countries
Overconsumption – because of high rates of
resource use per person in developed countries;
if this is wasteful and excessive, can intensify
the environmental impact or ecological
footprint
Technological advances – have allowed
humankind to overcome the environmental
resistance that all populations face and to
increase the earth’s carrying capacity to our
advantage
Population Dynamics
and Sustainable Goals
The population, consisting of people all over the world, is at the center of
sustainable development
Majority of the fastest-growing populations are dwelling in the poorest countries
Population growth, in particular, places increasing pressures on the planet's
resources, contributing to climate change and challenging environmental
sustainability
Societies should adapt demographic realities in anticipation of future trends as
well as the incorporation of that information into government policies and
planning
 The global human population is putting too much pressure on
syawaekaT yeK
the world’s carrying capacity as well as challenging
environmental and development policies in achieving
sustainable development goals.
There are environmental factors that would limit the size of a
human population, which largely determines the world’s
carrying capacity.
Population, consisting of people from developed and
developing countries is at the core of sustainable development.
END OF DISCUSSION

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