After observing populations of two different species of birds, we were able to come to conclusions using data of their populations over a time interval of 43 years. By looking at the year vs. population, one can see general trends of both the bald eagle data as well as the data from pheasants both tend to generally increase. We inserted the data from Table 9 into individual graphs of the population of pheasants and bald eagle breeding pairs. When looking at Figure 15, the semilogarithmic graph of the population of pheasants in South Dakota from the years 1963 to 2006 seems to look as if the population size increases a small amount, but the graph does not show much increase just by looking at. To look more into depth …show more content…
This could be because when the researchers first recorded this information, the pheasants had already exceeded their carrying capacity, which is why the maximum population of 10,000,000 was recorded. Once a species exceeds its carrying capacity, the environment has an impact on the way the species is able to survive and produce, usually decreasing the population size. If there are too many individuals of the species, the resources for food begin to dwindle down, the spread of disease is greater, and competition begins to get worse for the animals. With these environmental influences, the individuals of the species begin to die off, which in turn causes the population to decrease. This could explain why the population was so high for these birds in 1963, and during this year the environment had a major impact on this species, causing many individuals to die off, which is why in the population was significantly lower in (almost two thirds lower) when recorded in 1974. After the environment successfully plays its role decreasing the population of a species, it will no longer have an impact on the population size since there should no longer be scarce resources for the animals. In turn, the population would be able to increase again to rise back up to the …show more content…
does not yet show to have a limit to the number of individuals in their population. Of course, there is a carrying capacity for these type of birds, as well, but this sample does not show to be large enough to exceed their limit. Since the graph shows a general upward trend, it can be concluded that the population of these birds have been increasing in size during this time interval of 43 years that their information was recorded. The population growth model that would best fit these bald eagles would be the exponential growth model. Each interval on the graph shows an increase in the population from the previous years, and Table 9 shows the exact population numbers where every single data point increased, there was not one decrease in the population size. Exponential growth shows populations that increase in size, which is exactly what this bald eagle population is doing. Again, to help conclude our arguments, Figure 14 shows the data of both the bald eagles and pheasants, and it is clear to see that the bald eagle population is increasing, showing exponential growth, whereas the population of the pheasants is not extremely clear of its intended orientation, due to its limiting factor of the carrying