Overpopulation
What causes overpopulation
- Increased birth rates/ fertility rates
- Reduced mortality rates
- Increase in immigration
- Unsustainable biome/ depletion of resources
A species population exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche.
An ecological niche is the role and position a species has in its environment; how it meets its needs for food and shelter, how it survives, and how it reproduces.
A species is a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature in order to produce fertile offspring.
Carrying capacity is defined as a species' average population size in a particular habitat.
References: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/topics/resource-library-carrying-capacity/?q=&page=1&per_page=25 https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/species-312/ https://study.com/academy/lesson/ecological-niche-definition-lesson-quiz.html#transcriptHeader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/malthus_thomas.shtml https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Malthus https://www.cs.hmc.edu/~belgin/Population/malthus.html https://study.com/academy/lesson/malthusian-theory-of-population-growth-definition-lesson-quiz.html#transcriptHeader https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=5e6717ee72d845bcb14198780b71fe71 https://www.thoughtco.com/population-growth-and-movement-industrial-revolution-1221640 https://www.lifespan.io/news/overpopulation/
Thomas Malthus
In his work "An Essay on the Principle of Population" he argued that increases in population would eventually diminish the ability of the world to feed itself, and in order to secure humankind's future, there must be stern limits on reproduction.
Population will always expand to the limit of subsistence. Preventative and positive checks were necessary in order to manage population sizes.
Positive checks: shorten the average lifespan, including disease, warfare, and famine. These would result in a Malthusian Catastrophe/ Malthusian Crisis, that would force a population to return to a state of basic survival.
The Irish Potato Famine of the 19th century was an example of a Malthusian Catastrophe; the rapidly growing Irish population was running out of food and also having to deal with the fragmentation of their land and political and economical upset with England.
Preventative checks: voluntary actions people can take to avoid contributing to the population.
Moral restraint: people resit the urge to marry and reproduce until they are capable of supporting a family.
Immoral population checks: vices, adultery, prostitution, and birth control.
Industrial Revolution
Between 1700 and 1750 there is little remarkable population growth in England. However, during the revolution time, the population of England is believed to have doubled.
The develpoment of machinery increased agricultural efficiency and housing conditions, Maning that more people earned enough money to afford and support larger families. This lead to increased birth rates.
The world population growth rate increased from 0.1% to 57% after the start of the industrial revolution.
Death rates fell during the revolution; improved diet due to improved food production, liveable wages, end of plague era, smallpox vaccine.
Does saving more lives lead to overpopulation?
"As health improves, families choose to have less children"
"Population growth goes down as we improve health"
"The faster we improve health, the faster family size goes down"