Chapter 5 Population Dynamics and Human Population Growth Vocabulary

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards covering population metrics, growth patterns, density-dependent and density-independent limiting factors, and demography principles from Chapter 5.

Geographic Range

The area inhabited by a population.

Population Density

The number of individuals per unit area.

Population Distribution

How individuals in a population are spaced out across their range, categorized as random, uniform, or clumped.

Growth Rate

A population measure that determines whether a population increases, decreases, or remains constant.

Age Structure

The number of males and females of each age group within a population.

Immigration

The movement of individuals into a population from elsewhere.

Emigration

The movement of individuals out of a population's range.

Limiting Factors

Factors that control population size and affect an organism's way of living.

Density-Dependent Limiting Factors

Limiting factors that affect populations based on population density, including competition, predation, herbivory, parasitism, disease, and stress from overcrowding.

Density-Independent Limiting Factors

Limiting factors that affect all populations regardless of population size and density, such as floods, fires, extreme temperatures, and bad weather.

Thomas Malthus

An English economist who suggested in $1798$ that war, famine, and disease were the forces that could limit human population growth.

Demography

The scientific study of human populations.

Demographic Transition

A dramatic change in a population from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates.

Age Structure Diagram

A chart (also known as a population pyramid) that illustrates the numbers of people by age group and gender within a population.

Competition

A density-dependent limiting factor where organisms struggle for limited resources like food as crowding increases.

Parasitism and Disease

Density-dependent limiting factors that spread easily in crowded places, reducing organism survival and reproduction.

Stress from Overcrowding

A density-dependent limiting factor caused by competition and crowding that reduces reproduction and increases death rates.

Nitrogen Fixation

A basic cycle component reviewed from ecological material involving the biological process of fixing nitrogen.