COLLEGE OF SCIENCE

Biological Science Department

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
GEED 20103

EnP. Ibylou Bandala – Golla, PhD

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Module 5

Population Principle and

Demography

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Lesson 1: Lesson 2:

General principles of Demography: Principles governing human

population growth populations
1. Total fertility rate

1. Biotic potential 2. Rate of natural increase

2. Exponential population growth 3. Migration patterns and growth rates

3. Environmental resistance 4. Population age structures

4. Ecosystem carrying capacity 5. Demographic transitions

6. Environmental factors
Case study: Population growth in China
7. Future world population trends
8. Cutting global population growth

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Objectives:

After successfully completing this module, students should be able to:

1. Explain the concepts of population and demography.

2. Define the different demographical characteristics of a population and explain how they relate to each
other.
3. Explain the four factors that produce changes in population size.
4. Identify Thomas Malthus, relate his ideas on human population growth, and explain why he may or
may not have been wrong.
5. Explain why it is impossible to precisely determine how many people Earth can support—that is,
Earth’s carrying capacity for humans.
6. Define demographics and describe the demographic transition.
7. Relate total fertility rates to each of the following: cultural values, social and economic status of
women, availability of family planning services, and government policies.
8. Explain the link between education and total fertility rates.
9. Explain how highly developed and developing countries differ in population characteristics such as
infant mortality rate, total fertility rate, replacement-level fertility, and age structure.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Population - Individuals of a given species which are part of a larger
organization
 Populations exhibit characteristics that are distinct from those of the
individuals in them.
 Some of the features characteristic of populations but not of individuals are:
 birth and death rates,
 growth rates, and
 age structure.

 Biotic Potential is the general study of population changes. One of the

most important properties of living things is that their abundances change
over time and space

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Different species have different biotic potentials
(also called intrinsic rates of increase).

Several factors influence the biotic potential of a

species:
a. the age at which reproduction begins;
b. the fraction of the life span during which an
individual can reproduce;
c. the number of reproductive periods per
lifetime; and
d. the number of offspring produced during each
period of reproduction.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Youngest women to give birth - Lina
Medina (Peru)
- Gave Birth 5/14/1939
- Age: 5 years, 7 months, 21 days
(medical condition known as
“precocious puberty”)

Most number of births to one mother - Valentina Vassilyev

(Russia)
- The grand total: 69 children (between 1725 and 1765)
- 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of
quadruplets, (27 separate labors)

(study estimated a woman can have around 15

pregnancies in a lifetime. And depending on how many babies
she births for each pregnancy, she'd probably have around 15-
30 children
26 year-old Halima Cissé (Mali)
beat the world record for most
babies born at one birth.

Nonuplets – or nine babies

Biotic potential differences :
 many large mammals, like humans or elephants,
will only produce one offspring per year and
 some small organisms, like insects, will produce
thousands of offspring per year.

 Organisms do not tend to fulfill their biotic

potential because most species do not live under
ideal environmental conditions. At some point,
population growth will be hindered by predators,
disease, changes in environment, a lack of
available food, or a combination of these factors.
These factors, called life history characteristics,
determine whether a particular species has a
large or a small biotic potential.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Bacterial population numbers vs time,
Yields J shape graph.

When a population grows exponentially, the

larger the population gets, the faster it grows.
Regardless of species, whenever a population
grows at its biotic potential, population size
plotted versus time gives the same J-shaped
curve. The only variable is time. It may take
longer for a dolphin population than for a
bacterial population to reach a certain size
dolphin do not reproduce as rapidly as
bacteria, but both populations will always
increase exponentially as long as their growth
rates remain constant.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Exponential Population Growth
In theory, any kind of organism could take over the
Earth just by reproducing.

 a single pair of male and female rabbits and their

descendants reproduce at top speed for 7 years,
without any deaths, we would have enough
rabbits to cover the entire state of Rhode Island.
 if we used E. coli bacteria instead, we could start
with just one bacterium and have enough bacteria
to cover the Earth with a 1-foot layer in
just 36 hours.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
When the resources are limited, a population can only reach a size that
match the availability of resources in its local environment.

Population dynamics - how populations change in size and composition

over time.

Models were used to represent growth without environmental constraints,

while others include "ceilings" determined by limited resources.

Mathematical models of populations can be used to accurately describe

changes occurring in a population and, importantly, to predict future
changes.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Population growth rate:

𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑
= 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟
𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑

dN/dT – growth rate of the population at a given instant

N – Population size
T – time
r – per capita rate of increase (how quickly the population grows per
individual already in the population (if we assume no movement of
individuals into or out of the population, r is just as function of birth and
death rates

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
The equation above is very general, and we can
make more specific forms of it to describe two
different kinds of growth models: exponential and
logistic.

• When the per capita rate of increase (r) takes the

same positive value regardless of the population
size, then we get exponential growth.

Exponential growth is not a very sustainable state of

affairs, since it depends on infinite amounts of
Figure C-2.
resources (which tend not to exist in the real world).

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 rmax is the maximum per capita rate of increase for particular species under
ideal conditions, it varies from species to species.

The maximum population growth rate for a species, also referred to as biotic
potential, is express in:

𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑
= 𝑟𝑟𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 𝑁𝑁
𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
• When the per capita rate of increase (r) decreases as
the population increases towards a maximum limit,
then we get logistic growth.

Exponential growth may happen for a while, if there are

few individuals and many resources. But when the
number of individuals gets large enough, resources start
to get used up, slowing the growth rate. Eventually, the
growth rate will plateau, or level off, making an S-shaped
curve. The population size at which it levels off, which Figure C-3.
represents the maximum population size a particular
environment can support, is called the carrying capacity,
or K.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Logistic growth can be modeled by modifying the exponential growth equation
using an r (per capita growth rate) that depends on population size (N) and
how close it is to carrying capacity (K). Assuming that the population has a
base growth rate of rmax when it is very small:

𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 (𝐾𝐾 − 𝑁𝑁)

= 𝑟𝑟𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 𝑁𝑁
𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝐾𝐾

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Population growth Biotic Potential Logistic Growth
rate

𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 (𝐾𝐾 − 𝑁𝑁)

𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 = 𝑟𝑟𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 𝑁𝑁
= 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 = 𝑟𝑟𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 𝑁𝑁 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝐾𝐾
𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑
 Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), a British economist is one
of the first people to recognize that the human population
can’t increase indefinitely was .

He pointed out that human population growth is not

always desirable—a view contrary to the beliefs of his day
and to those of many people even today. Noting that
human population can increase faster than its food supply,
he warned that the inevitable consequences of population
growth would be famine, disease, and war.

Since Malthus’s time, the human population has increased

from about 1 billion to 7 billion.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
College of Science – Department of Biology
Our world population was 7 billion in late 2011,
an increase of about 95 million from 2010.
- The increase was not due to a rise in the
birth rate (b), although high birth rates are a
serious problem in many countries.
- The population growth is due instead to a
dramatic decrease in the death rate (d),
which has occurred primarily because
greater food production, better medical care,
and improvements in water quality and
sanitation practices have increased life
expectancy for a great majority of the global
population.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Environmental Resistance - the sum of the environmental factors (such as drought,
mineral deficiencies, and competition) that tend to restrict the biotic potential of an
organism or kind of organism and impose a limit on numerical increase.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Two kinds of Environmental Resistance

a. Density Dependent Factor

Density-dependent limiting factors can lead to a logistic pattern of growth, in which a

population's size levels off at an environmentally determined maximum called the carrying
capacity. Sometimes this is a smooth process; in other cases, though, the population may
overshoot carrying capacity and be brought back down by density-dependent factors

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
b. Density-independent limiting factors

The second group of limiting factors consists of density-independent limiting factors that affect per
capita growth rate independent of how dense the population is.

As an example, let's consider a wildfire that breaks out in a forest where deer live. The fire will kill any
unlucky deer that are present, regardless of population size. An individual deer's chance of dying doesn't
depend at all on how many other deer are around. Density-independent limiting factors often take the
form of natural disasters, severe weather, and pollution.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
On our finite planet the
human population will
eventually be limited by some
factor or combination of
factors.

We can group limiting factors

into three.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Short-term factors - disruption of food distribution in a country, commonly caused
by drought or by a shortage of energy for transporting food.

Intermediate-term factors - desertification; dispersal of certain pollutants, such as

toxic metals, into waters and fisheries; disruption in the supply of non-renewable
resources, such as rare metals used in making steel alloys for transportation
machinery; and a decrease in the supply of firewood or other fuels for heating and
cooking.

Long-term factors - soil erosion, a decline in groundwater supplies, and climate

change. A decline in resources available per person suggests that we may already
have exceeded Earth’s long-term human carrying capacity.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Extrapolate approach - from past growth, assuming
that the population will follow an S-shaped logistic
growth curve and gradually level off.

Packing problem approach - also be called the

standing-room-only approach, is not taking into sufficient
account the need for land and oceans to provide food,
water, energy, construction materials, the need to
maintain biological diversity, and the human need for
scenic beauty.

Deep ecology approach - sustaining the biosphere the

primary moral imperative.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Between the packing-problem approach and the deep-
ecology approach are a number of options. It is possible to
set goals in between these extremes, but each of these
goals is a value judgment, again reminding us of one of this
subject’s themes: science and values. What constitutes a
desirable quality of life is a value judgment. The perception
of what is desirable will depend in part on what we are used
to, and this varies greatly.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
College of Science – Department of Biology
In summary, the acceptable carrying capacity is not simply a scientific issue;
it is an issue combining science and values, within which science plays two
roles.

 First, by leading to new knowledge, which in turn leads to new technology,

it makes possible both a greater impact per individual on Earth’s
resources and a higher density of human beings.
 Second, scientific methods can be used to forecast a probable carrying
capacity once a goal for the average quality of life, in terms of human
values, is chosen. In this second use, science can tell us the implications
of our value judgments, but it cannot provide those value judgments.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Lesson 2:
Demography:
Principles governing
human populations

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Demography (derived from the
Greek words demos, people, and
graphein, to write or to measure)
encompasses vital statistics about
people, such as births, deaths, and
where they live, as well as total
population size.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 there is an ultimate carrying capacity
for the human population
 limiting factors will cause human
populations to stabilize.
 humans are also influenced by
social, political, economic, and
ethical factors.
 part of our knowledge is the
certainty that as populations
continue to increase death rates and Fig. C – 6 Total fertility rates for the whole world have fallen by more
than half over the past 50 years. Much of this dramatic change has
birth rates will become equal. occurred in China and India. Progress has lagged in sub-Saharan Africa,
but by 2050 the world average should be approaching the replacement
rate of 2.1 children per woman on reproductive age.
Source: World Bank, 2012.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 1. TOTAL FERTILITY RATE

The most important determinant of the rate at which human populations grow is related to
how many women in the population are having children and the number of children each
woman will have. The total fertility rate of a population is the number of children born per
woman in her lifetime.

A total fertility rate of 2.1 is known as replacement fertility, since parents produce 2 children
who will replace the parents when they die. Eventually, if the total fertility rate is maintained
at 2.1, population growth will stabilize.

A rate of 2.1 is used rather than 2.0 because some children do not live very long after birth
and therefore will not contribute to the population for very long. When a population is not
growing, and the number of births equals the number of deaths, it is said to exhibit zero
population growth.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Fertility is influenced by culture

Decisions about family size, affect the population at large.

Factors that increase people’s desires to have babies are called
pronatalist pressures.

- Raising a family may be the most enjoyable and rewarding part

of many people’s lives.
- Children can be a source of pleasure, pride, and comfort.
- They may be the only source of support for elderly parents in
countries without a social security system.
- Where there is little opportunity for upward mobility, children give
status in society, express parental creativity, and provide a sense
of continuity and accomplishment otherwise missing from life.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
- Society also has a need to replace members who die
or become incapacitated.
- Some societies look upon families with few or no
children with pity or contempt, and for them the idea of
deliberately controlling fertility may be shocking, even
taboo.
- Women who are pregnant or have small children have
special status and protection.
- Boys frequently are more valued than girls because
they carry on the family name and are expected to
support their parents in old age.
- Couples may have more children than they desire in an
attempt to produce a son who lives to maturity.
- Male pride often is linked to having as many children
as possible.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Education and income affect the desire for children

- Higher education and personal freedom for women

often result in decisions to limit childbearing. Educated
women are more likely to have the family status to make
their own decisions about childbearing.

In less-developed countries, where feeding and clothing

children can be a minimal expense, adding one more
child to a family usually doesn’t cost much. By contrast,
raising a child in a developed country can cost hundreds
of thousands of dollars, and it can be hard for parents to
afford more than one or two.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 RATE OF NATURAL INCREASE
- Natural increase, the difference between the numbers of births and deaths in a population;
- Given the fertility and mortality characteristics of the human species (excluding incidents of
catastrophic mortality), the range of possible rates of natural increase is rather narrow.
- For a nation, it has rarely exceeded 4 percent per year; the highest known rate for a
national population—arising from the conjunction of a very high birthrate and a quite low
death rate—is that experienced in Kenya during the 1980s, in which the natural increase of
the population approximated 4.1 pa
- Rates of natural increase in other developing countries generally are lower; these countries
averaged about 2.5 percent per annum during the same period. Meanwhile the rates of
natural increase in industrialized countries are very low: the highest is approximately 1
percent, most are in the neighborhood of several tenths of 1 percent, and some are slightly
negative (that is, their populations are slowly decreasing).

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
The human population has reached a turning
point. Although our numbers continue to
increase, the world growth rate (r) has
declined slightly over the past several years,
from a peak of 2.2% pa in the mid-1960s to
the current growth rate of 1.2% pa year.

Population experts at the United Nations and

the World Bank project that the growth rate
will continue to decrease slowly until zero
population growth is attained toward the end
of the 21st century. Exponential growth of the
human population will end, and the S curve
may replace the J curve

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Small differences in fertility, produce large differences in population forecasts.

The main unknown factor in any population growth scenario is Earth’s carrying capacity. Most published
estimates of how many people Earth can support range from 4 billion to 16 billion. For example, in 2004,
environmental economists in the Netherlands performed a detailed analysis of 69 recent studies of Earth’s
carrying capacity for humans. Based on current technology, they estimated that 7.7 billion is the upper
limit of human population that the world can support. Even the low U.N. projection for 2050 exceeds this
value.

These estimates vary widely depending on what assumptions are made about standard of living, resource
consumption, technological innovations, and waste generation. If we want all people to have a high level
of material well-being equivalent to the lifestyles in highly developed countries, then Earth will support far
fewer humans than if everyone lives just above the subsistence level. Unlike with other organisms,
environmental constraints aren’t the exclusive determinant of Earth’s carrying capacity for humans.
Human choices and values must be factored into the assessment.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
College of Science – Department of Biology
What will happen to the human population when it approaches Earth’s carrying
capacity? Optimists suggest that a decrease in the birth rate will stabilize the human
population. Some experts take a more pessimistic view and predict that our ever-
expanding numbers will cause widespread environmental degradation and make
Earth uninhabitable for humans as well as other species.

These population researchers contend that a massive wave of human suffering and
death will occur. This view doesn’t mean we will go extinct as a species, but it projects
severe hardship for many people. Some experts think the human population has
already exceeded the carrying capacity of the environment, a potentially dangerous
situation that threatens our long-term survival as a species.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Cutting global population growth

- As a species, we humans have expanded our range throughout Earth, and few habitable
areas remain that have the resources to adequately support a major increase in human
population.

- It is unlikely that death rates will increase substantially in the foreseeable future.
Consequently, global human population will not stabilize unless birth rates drop.

- Cultural traditions, women’s social and economic status, family planning, and government
policies all influence total fertility rate (TFR).

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
The Social and Economic Status of Women

Gender inequality exists to varying degrees in most societies: Women don’t have the same rights,
opportunities, or privileges as men. Gender disparities include the lower political, social, economic, and
health status of women compared to men. For example, more women than men live in poverty, particularly
in developing countries. In most countries, women are not guaranteed equality in legal rights, education,
employment and earnings, or political participation. Because sons are more highly valued than daughters,
girls are often kept at home to work rather than being sent to school.

In most developing countries, a higher percentage of women are illiterate than men. However, definite
progress has been made in recent years in increasing literacy in both women and men and in narrowing
the gender gap. Fewer young women and men are illiterate than older women and men within a given
country. Worldwide, some 90 million girls aren’t given the opportunity to receive a primary (elementary
school) education. Laws, customs, and lack of education often limit women to low-skilled, low-paying jobs.
In such societies, marriage is usually the only way for a woman to achieve social influence and economic
security.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
- A study in Kenya showed that 10.9 percent of children
born to women with no education died by age 5, as
compared with 7.2 percent of children born to women
with a primary education, and 6.4 percent of children
born to women with a secondary education.
- Education also increases women’s career options and
provides ways of achieving status besides having
babies. Education may also have an indirect effect on
TFR.
- Children who are educated have a greater chance of
improving their living standards, partly because they
have more employment opportunities.
- Parents who recognize this may be more willing to
invest in the education of a few children than in the
birth of many children whom they can’t afford to
educate.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Family Planning Services

- Socioeconomic factors may encourage

people to want smaller families, but
fertility reduction won’t become a reality
without the availability of health and
family planning services.
- The governments of most countries
recognize the importance of educating
people about basic maternal and child
health care.
- Developing countries that have
significantly lowered their TFRs credit
many of these results to effective family
planning programs.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
 Activity:

1. How does the study of population ecology help us understand

why some populations grow, some remain stable, and others
decline?
2. Why has human population growth, which increased
exponentially for centuries, started to decline in the past few
decades?
3. What is carrying capacity? Do you think carrying capacity
applies to people as well as to other organisms? Why or why
not?

Polytechnic University of the Philippines

College of Science – Department of Biology
Questions for the Article:
• 1. What are your key takeaways from the article? Cite 3.
• 2. The article was written 10 years ago, and some data were results of
studies from some more years back, are those learnings/takeaways
still true for present times and condition? Why or why not?