Sci/275 Checkpoint: Population Size

CheckPoint: Population Size

In the video it is discussing an animal called the nutria. These animals are not native to Louisiana and are destroying the environment. The nutria is herbivores that live in the marsh lands of Louisiana. When nutria are full grown they will eat about a quarter of their body weight in one single day. These animals have a relatively large biotic potential because they have a maximum life span of 12 years producing up to 40 offspring each year. The age of sexual maturity of the nutria is at six months old. This leads to exponential population growth. The other main factor of why Louisiana is a great breeding ground for these animals is because it has very little environmental resistance against them. Louisiana has an abundance of food, water, shelter, and other resources for these little critters with few predators. Eventually the population growth will level out because the Louisiana’s marshes will reach their carrying capacity where the environmental resistance will increase because of limited food, water, shelter, and other essential resources as well as increased disease and predation. After the environment reaches its carrying capacity the population will eventually decrease but not until the land has already been ravished by these animals creating water where there was once land.

Resources

Texas Tech University. (1997).  The Mammals of Texas - Online Edition. Retrieved from http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/myoccoyp.htm

WEB LINK: Alien Invasion VLR

WileyPLUS: Visualizing Environmental Science, Ch.7 Human Population Change and the Environment.