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Serious Science: Biological Carrying Capacity

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the number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation

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Here is how you can determine hat the carrying capacity of an ecosystem is

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Carrying capacity refers to the number of individuals who can be supported in a given area within natural resource limits, and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic environment for present and future generations. The carrying capacity for any given area is not fixed.

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Here are some great examples of carrying capacity

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Carrying Capacity

Let's say your soccer team goes to a pizza buffet after playing a soccer game. The pizza buffet has five different pizzas with all your favorite toppings. This is plenty of pizza to support you and your teammates. But what happens if the opposing team shows up at the same pizza buffet? Now, there are only five pizzas for two soccer teams. If the owner of the pizza place can't keep up with the demand for food, some of the players will go hungry.

This is kind of what happens when we look at a concept in science known as carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is the maximum number of living organisms that an environment can support. From our example, we see that the carrying capacity for the pizza buffet was one soccer team. When this amount of customers was exceeded, the pizza place could not get the pizzas made and out fast enough to feed everyone, so food became a limiting factor, meaning something that restricts the number of organisms that can be supported.

In this lesson, we will look at how carrying capacity within animal populations is affected by availability of food and other limiting factors.

Ecosystems

Scientists study carrying capacity in order to determine if an ecosystem is sustainable. You remember that an ecosystem is the community of animals, plants, and other organisms that live in the same area. There are different types of ecosystems, from forests to oceans to deserts. Ecosystems provide the resources a species of animals needs in order to live, feed, and reproduce. However, an ecosystem can only support a certain number of animals before problems start to arise.

Limiting Factors

So how do scientists determine how many animals can live and thrive in an area? To do this, they evaluate the limiting factors. In our pizza parlor, we saw that the limiting factor was food; five pizzas was not enough food to feed two hungry soccer teams. In a natural environment, availability of food is also a limiting factor.

For example, let's say a small forest can support two bears very easily because there's plenty of vegetation and berries for the bears to eat. But if two more bears move into the forest, there will be a problem. The four bears will eat all of the available food. When the food is gone, the area can no longer sustain a bear population. In this case, we would say the maximum carrying capacity of the small forest is two bears.

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carrying capacity within animal populations - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Carrying Capacity within Animal Populations - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Let's say your soccer team goes to a pizza buffet after playing a soccer game. The pizza buffet has five different pizzas with all your favorite toppings. This is plenty of pizza to support you and your teammates. But what happens if the opposing team shows up at the same pizza buffet?

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This article has great examples and defnitions

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Carrying capacity: Carrying capacity, the average population density or population size of a species below which its numbers tend to increase and above which its numbers tend to decrease because of shortages of resources. The carrying capacity is different for each species in a habitat because of that species'