APES Population Growth - Shope

Thomas Robert Malthus



• late 1700s / early 1800s

• educated (Harvard); from England

• “Essays on the Principles of Populations”
o 1798
o he was concerned about the rapidly growing population (early stages of industrial revolution)
o originally concerned with food & carrying capacity
o then concerned with being able to afford the population

• “In nature, more offspring are produced than can survive.”

• developed our modern ideas about population & population growth

• logistic growth
o populations tend to expand until they reach the carrying capacity (k), then level off
o arithmetic
o “S” curve

• exponential growth
o how humans are reproducing
o geometric
o “J” curve

• overshoot growth
o population rises then suddenly… a dieback/crash
o after crash: either recovery or extinction