Chapter 7: Human Population Change and the Environment Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering population ecology terms, demographic metrics, growth patterns, and urbanization concepts from Chapter 7.

Population

Individuals of a particular species living in a defined area.

Population Ecology

The branch of biology that studies individuals of a particular species in a defined area, focusing on how and why population increases or decreases over time as a result of competition, disease, predation, and other environmental pressures.

Growth Rate ($r$)

The rate of change of a population's size, expressed in percentage per year, calculated as birth rate ($b$) minus death rate ($d$): $r = b - d$.

Immigration ($i$)

The movement of individuals entering a population, which increases its size.

Emigration ($e$)

The movement of individuals leaving a population, which decreases its size.

Biotic Potential

The maximum rate of population increase under ideal conditions, which is influenced by life history characteristics.

Exponential Population Growth

Population growth that occurs when optimal conditions enable organisms to maintain a constant reproductive rate, resulting in a characteristic J-shaped curve when graphed.

Environmental Resistance

Environmental limits placed on exponential growth, such as increased competition, predation, disease, and declining resource availability.

Carrying Capacity ($K$)

The largest population a particular environment can support long term if there are no changes in that environment, producing an S-shaped growth curve.

Population Crash

An abrupt decline in population numbers from high to low density that occurs after a population overshoots its carrying capacity ($K$) and exhausts resources.

Demographics

The applied branch of sociology that deals with population statistics.

GNI PPP

Gross national income in purchasing power parity; when divided by population, it indicates the amount of goods and services an average citizen of a country could buy in the United States.

Infant Mortality Rate

The number of deaths of children under age 1 per 1,000 live births.

Replacement-Level Fertility

The number of children a couple must produce to replace themselves, estimated at 2.1 to compensate for childhood deaths.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children born to each woman during her lifetime.

Demographic Transition

The process whereby a country moves from relatively high birth and death rates to relatively low birth and death rates through four stages (Preindustrial, Transitional, Industrial, and Postindustrial) as it becomes industrialized and urbanized.

Age Structure

The number and proportion of people at each age in a population, represented in diagrams to help predict future population growth.

Population Growth Momentum

The effect of a population's present age distribution on its future growth, which can be positive (driven by a large prereproductive age group) or negative.

Microcredit Programs

Programs that extend small loans of $50 to $500 to very poor people (primarily targeting women) to establish businesses and alleviate poverty.

Urbanization

The movement of people from rural areas to densely populated cities.

Brownfields

Areas of abandoned, vacant factories or residential sites that are contaminated from past uses but represent potential urban land resources.

Suburban Sprawl

The expansion of suburbs around a city, encroaching onto natural areas and farmland and creating reliance on automobiles for transportation.

Compact Development

An urban planning strategy featuring tall, multiple-unit residential buildings located close to shopping, jobs, and public transportation to optimize land use and reduce motor vehicle pollution.

Megacity

A city with more than 10 million inhabitants.