Did you know a group of 20 mice have the potential of turning into a population of 5120 in just a matter of 6 months? The question is what stops these mice from reproducing? We are going to answer that in this piece of writing? According to the Nelson Science 10 the definition of biotic potential is that maximum number of offspring a organism could produce if it had unlimited resources. There are four ways in which the biotic potential is regulated. They are limiting factors, carrying capacity, limits of tolerance, dependent factors and independent factors.
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Limiting factors are the amount of resources organism uses. For example if an animal has too few resources or too many resources its population will decrease. The carrying capacity is the number of species a ecosystem can support. For example if a new species of an animal is introduced into a ecosystem it can have devastating effect on it. If a population goes above what the ecosystem can handle it will only last a short period of time. The ecosystem will then lower the population naturally.
The limit of tolerance is that an organism will die if there is a decrease in the amount nutrients needed to keep it alive. Lastly a density dependent factor is a factor that affects a population that doesn't depend on its density. An example of this could be a wildfire. This could wipe out a large amount of species a certain ecosystem. A density-dependent factor is a factor that affects an ecosystem depending on the population. An example of this could occur if there were a large amount of oak trees. If an insect that eats oak trees were brought into a environment it could thrive and destroy all the trees.
As you can see the biotic potential varies among different factors. It is amazing how an ecosystem can keep a balance of its population. In conclusion the population of a species can be controlled very easily.
