CK-12 Biology I - Honors

by CK-12 Foundation

  Figure 17.28

  Easter Island today is a low-diversity grassland nearly devoid of the food sources, woody trees, and rope-yielding plants which helped to build and transport these 10-meter stone statues. Jared Diamond suggests that overpopulation and overexploitation of resources led to the collapse of a once-thriving Easter Island society, and that Easter Island is Earth writ small a warning to the world.

  Pollen analyses suggest that the island was totally forested at least until 1200 CE, but that by 1650 the forests had entirely disappeared. Middens (waste dump sites) show a sudden disappearance of sea bird and fish bones, suggesting that wood for canoes was no longer available. Sediments reveal that half of native plant species had become extinct. Later fire pits indicate the possibility of cannibalism.

  Jared Diamond, in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, examines this bleak scene and other past societies and concludes that doomed civilizations share eight traits which contribute to their collapse. Seven of the eight traits are rooted in overpopulation relative to environmental carrying capacity. Diamond considers Easter Island to be “Earth writ small” – a warning that this island’s environmental devastation could foreshadow a similar fate for our planet. He encourages humans to learn from earlier collapses to conserve the forest, soil, water, animal, fish, photosynthetic, atmospheric, and energy resources upon which our human lives depend. A large group of people sometimes known as “Neo-Malthusians” join Diamond in his belief that human population growth cannot continue without dire consequences.

  Julian Simon and a group dubbed “cornucopians” see the human condition differently. Named for the mythical Greek "horn of plenty” which supplied endless food and drink magically, cornucopians believe that the Earth can provide an almost limitless abundance of natural resources, that few natural limits to growth exist, and that technology can solve or overcome population-induced resource scarcity and environmental degradation. Larger human population (within an appropriate political environment) is the answer to the problems of population growth, according to Simon.

  Are you, like Diamond and Malthus before him, a “doomster”? Or do you join Simon as a “boomster”? Most “doomsters” and “boomsters” share the belief that we are responsible for managing problems related to population growth. Let’s use our understanding of population biology to study the human population. Our goal will be to shed light on the decisions we – the only species able to consider and alter our rates of birth and death – make about future population growth.

  The past two lessons have shown how populations in nature grow. You have learned that all populations have the potential to grow exponentially (J-curve pattern of growth), but that exponential growth is limited to ideal conditions, which are rare in nature. In nature, competition for limited resources or unpredictable, density-independent limiting factors restrict populations to densities at or below carrying capacities (S-curve growth pattern). Some populations grow smoothly to a stable carrying capacity, but others overshoot that density and may crash before rebuilding to a relatively stable level. A few crash to extinction. In unstable environments, some populations establish cycles of population growth and decline. Unstable environments favor adaptations for rapid growth (r-selected species), and stable environments favor adaptations for efficient use of resources (K-selected species).

  Where do humans fit? Are we built for growth – or conditioned for efficient use of resources? Does our growth pattern resemble a J, or an S? Are we in danger of extinction? What exactly is our “population problem,” and what can we do to solve it?

  Early Human Population Growth

  Figure 17.29

  The growth of the worlds human population (using estimates by scholars in the field for the time before census data) shows a classic J shape on this 12,000-year scale. Can you distinguish the decline due to black death in the early middle ages?

  Figure 17.30

  Growth of populations according to Malthus exponential model (A) and Verhulsts logistic model (B). Both models assume that population growth is proportional to population size, but the logistic model also assumes that growth depends on available resources. A model's growth under ideal conditions shows that all populations have a capacity to grow infinitely large. B limits exponential growth to low densities; at higher densities, competition for resources or other limiting factors inevitably cause growth rate to slow to zero. At that point, the population reaches a stable plateau, or the .

  Let’s begin by looking at the data. Worldwide human population from 10,000 BCE through today is graphed in Figure above. The theoretical J (exponential) and S (logistic) growth curves are reviewed in Figure above. Overall, our growth resembles exponential growth (the J curve), increasing very slowly at first, but later growing at accelerating rates which show no sign of nearing carrying capacity. We appear to be r-selected for rapid growth; indeed, some have described humans as the most successful “weed species” Earth has ever seen as we are fast growing, rapidly dispersing, and colonize habitats from pole to pole. If Earth has a carrying capacity for humans, it is not yet visible in our growth curve – at least on this scale.

  However, closer study of human population dynamics reveals more complexity. Different countries show different patterns of population growth today, and history shows varying patterns of growth across time. The history of human population growth can be divided into four stages. Today’s countries show snapshot views of these stages. In this section, we will look at early human population growth.

  As scientists currently understand human history, Homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago in Africa. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, we migrated to Eurasia and Australia about 40,000 years ago and into the Americas 30,000 years later. Throughout this period, both birth rates and death rates were probably high – as much as 5%. Our human population grew slowly as we spread throughout the world, out-competing other hominid species with our apparently superior reproductive and competitive adaptations. Ice ages, warming periods, and volcanic eruptions were density-independent factors which severely limited our population growth. For example, a “supervolcanic” eruption at Toba in Sumatra 74,000 years ago covered India and Pakistan with more than 5 feet of ash, causing 6 years of nuclear winter, a thousand-year ice age, and the death of up to 99% of the humans living at the time!

  With the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, we began to develop settled civilizations and trade. Disease associated with animal domestication and city living increased death rates, but reliable food supplies, shared childcare, and division of labor increased birth rates. These effects may have offset each other; slow and uneven growth probably continued. However, the development of agriculture, like many advances in technology, almost certainly raised carrying capacity.

  Beginning about 6000 years ago, political states evolved, cooperated or competed, and sometimes waged war. Empires formed, connecting previously independent populations. In the Middle Ages, technology advanced, and the 17th century brought the Scientific Revolution. Throughout this long period of human history, death rates and birth rates continued to be high. Density-independent factors such as drought and the “little ice age” combined with density-dependent factors such as disease to keep death rates high and variable. The “black death” of the mid-fourteenth century killed as many as 75 million people worldwide and the disease is one of the very few events whose effects are visible in any graph of human population growth (Figures above, below). Birth rates continued at a high level throughout early human history. Carrying capacity rose with major advances in technology, as humans modified the environment by irrigating land, building cities, and transporting animals, plants, and products. The overall result was slow growth and a young population. By 1804 CE, the world’s human population had reached 1 billion.

  Figure 17.31

  Early human populations showed slow, uneven growth. At this scale, the negative effect of increased death rate due to the black plague during the mid-fourteen
th century is clear.

  Demographic Transition

  Major changes in human population growth began during the 18th century, but they affected different regions at different times. We will first consider Europe, and later compare Europe to other regions of the world. In 18th century Europe, seed planters, improved ploughs, threshing machines, crop rotation, and selective breeding of animals led to major growth in food supplies, so death rates due to starvation declined. With increasing understanding of the causes of disease, people improved water supplies, sewers, and personal hygiene – and lowered death rates even more. The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century developed new sources of energy, such as coal and electricity. These further increased the efficiency of new agricultural machines and promoted the development of new forms of transportation, mainly railroads, which improved distribution of food. Death rates fell – particularly for those 5 to 10 years of age, allowing many more children to survive to reproduce. The pattern of human survivorship shifted toward a Type III curve.

  Although death rates fell, birth rates remained at earlier levels. The gap between birth and death rates increased, and population growth began to accelerate (remember that r = b – d). Although this change did not happen uniformly throughout the world, it was soon reflected in world population levels: it took 200,000 years for the human population to grow to 1 billion, but only 123 years to grow to 2 billion!

  Demographic transition theory holds that human populations pass through four stages of growth (Figure below).

  Figure 17.32

  Demographic transition theory proposes that human populations pass through four or five predictable stages of population growth. The 1st and 4th stages are relatively stable, in the first stage because b and d are both high, and in the last because b and d are both low. The key to the theory (disputed by some) is this: once death rates fall due to industrialization and technology, birth rates will follow (the Transition, Stages 2 and 3). Because the theory is based on observations of developed countries, some people dispute its universality.

  Early human history, with its slow, uneven growth maintained by high rates of birth and death, illustrates Stage 1 (Figure Human Population Growth 8000 BC to 1800 AD, but compare to section “1” of Figure above).

  Stage 2, just discussed for Europe, involves a significant drop in death rate not matched by an increase in birth rate, resulting in an increasingly rapid rise in population – exponential growth.

  In Stage 3, according to the theory, changes in technology and society lead to a decline in birth rate:

  The decline in child mortality and improvement in agriculture leads rural families to realize they no longer need to have as many children.

  Agricultural improvements shift more people to urban areas and reduce the need for children.

  Compulsory education removes children from the work force but adds to the cost of raising them.

  Increasing education and employment of women reduces their time for and interest in having children.

  Birth control methods expand.

  Later marriage and delayed childbearing further lower birth rate.

  Eventually, according to demographic transition theory, falling birth rates approach already-diminished death rates, and population growth begins to level off.

  In Stage 4, birth rates equal death rates, r = zero, and populations become stable.

  This somewhat idealistic theory suggests that societies pass through predictable changes which lead to population growth patterns resembling the logistic or S curve. As we have seen (Figure 1), world population growth does not (yet?) show Stages 3 or 4. However, individual countries appear to be at different stages along the continuum; some have reached Stage 4 and a few even require the addition of a 5th stage.

  Recent Population Growth

  Death rates have fallen throughout the world, so that no country today is considered to remain in Stage 1. Countries appear to vary with respect to the timing of Stages 2 and 3. Many less developed countries remain in Stage 2, including Yemen, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Laos, and part of Sub-Saharan Africa.

  Angola’s age structure (Figure below) reveals accelerating Stage 2 growth. Widest at its base, the structure indicates many youths who will survive to reproduce at their parents’ high fertility rates because death rates are declining. Some countries, particularly those in regions of Africa which have been devastated by AIDS, appear stalled in Stage 2 due to disease and stagnant development. The demographic transition model may not prove to fit population growth in developing countries. Poor, low-income people in undeveloped countries have the highest birth rates. If demographic transition requires wealth and education, the world’s unequal distribution of development and resources may mean that these high birth rates will merely maintain exponential growth, rather than precipitate the social change associated with industrialization.

  Figure 17.33

  Angolas population pyramid reflects Stage 2 growth: The wide bars at its base show the many youths who will survive to reproduce at their parents high fertility rates because death rates (small steps moving up the pyramid) are declining.

  However, many countries appear to have begun the shift to Stage 3. Fertility rates have dropped 40% throughout much of South America, the Middle East, and the Pacific Islands. Countries such as India, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe have lowered birth rates between 25-40%, and others such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Haiti have reduced fertility to 10-25% of earlier rates. Populations in most of these countries are beginning to level off, although resistance to change in the social factors which reduce birthrate may delay or prevent this response. Ecologist Garrett Hardin has pointed out that voluntary birth control selects against people who use it; by itself, voluntary control is unlikely to limit population growth.

  High levels of industrialization and development have led to replacement (or lower) fertility rates in most of Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, China, and Thailand. China, Brazil, and Thailand passed through demographic transition extremely rapidly due to rapid economic and social changes. Replacement fertility includes 2 children to replace parents and a fraction of a child to make up for early mortality and at-birth sex ratio differences. Because mortality rates vary, replacement fertility rate ranges from 2.5 to 3.3 in poor countries, but averages 2.1 in developed countries. Globally, replacement fertility is 2.33 children per woman. In Stage 3 countries, populations will eventually stabilize if replacement fertility continues. However, many - including the US – continue to grow rapidly due to the “youth bulges” of exponential Stage 2 growth. The age structures of China and the US (Figure below) show demographic transition, but also youth bulges which will mean continuing growth for some time.

  Figure 17.34

  Population pyramids for China (above) and the U.S. (below) show decreased birth rates which suggest they have reached Stage 3 of the demographic transition model. Both countries show a population bulge remaining from Stage 2 exponential growth, so populations will continue to grow for a number of years. Eventually, if birth rates remain at replacement levels, populations will stabilize in Stage 4.

  Some countries have lowered birthrates below death rates so that r is actually negative. Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece are not producing enough children to replace their parents; populations in some of the southern European countries have already begun to decline. Top-heavy age structures for Spain and Japan are shown in Figure below. In countries such as Russia, negative growth emerged suddenly from economic and political crises which caused emigration, declining fertility, and increased male mortality, rather than from development and wealth as the transition model predicts. Negative growth rates pose economic threats: growth-dependent industries decline, and the burden of a large aging, economically dependent population falls on a smaller group of young workers. These shrinking population conditions are sometimes referred to as Stage 5 of the demographic transition.

  Figure 17.35

  The top-heavy age
structures for Spain and Japan show declining populations due to birth rates which have fallen below already-low death rates. Unless significant immigration occurs, these countries may suffer negative economic effects, such as decline in growth-dependent industries. The burden of a large aging, economically dependent population may fall on a smaller group of young workers.

  Future Population Growth: Does Earth Have a Carrying Capacity for Humans?

  As of September 2007, the world’s human population stood at about 6.7 billion, growing by 211,090 people each day. Historically, we didn’t hit the one-billion mark until 1804 (having begun 200,000 years earlier), but we needed just 12 years to grow by our last billion. Projections by the United Nations and the U.S. Census Bureau predict that by 2050, Earth will host 9.4 billion people; other estimates project that the earth will host 10 to 11 billion people by 2050. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BbkQiQyaYc or click on the following World Population video

  A graphic description of world population growth from 1 A.D. World Population (Millenium Edition) was produced and copyrighted by Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth, Inc.) in 2000. Population Connection is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. www.popconnect.org(Watch on Youtube)

  Cornucopians welcome such growth, believing more people are better for technology and innovation. The demographic transition model predicts that when all nations are industrialized, the human population will eventually reach a stable level – a carrying capacity of sorts. However, many scientists believe that humans have already overshot the carrying capacity of Earth for our unique levels of resource exploitation and habitat alteration. They and other Neo-Malthusians predict that resource depletion and environmental degradation will eventually lead to famine, epidemics, or war – a Malthusian crisis.