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After the "Population and Exponential Growth" lecture and readings you should be able to answer and discuss the following questions.

What are some of the factors that can cause a population size to fluctuate?

What is demography?

Describe the characteristics of the three basic types of survivorship curves.

What is meant by population growth?

Define the term growth rate.

What is meant by exponential growth?

Write the equation which describes exponential growth. Define each term in the equation.

Explain why exponential growth is not sustainable in the long term for a population.

What is meant by logistic growth?

How is the logistic growth equation similar and different as compared to the exponential growth equation?

When populations are small what happens with population growth?

When populations become large what happens with population growth?

What is meant by the term carrying capacity?

Write the equation which describes logistic growth. Define each term in the equation.

Discuss how the population growth of the flour beetle in a controlled lab situation compares to modeled logistic growth patterns?

When a population approaches its carrying capacity, what tends to happen to the population size?

What is phenotypic variation in a species?

What is intraspecific competition?

How does phenotypic variation influence intraspecific competition?

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