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Does offspring living longer affect the population at all? Does it increase or decrease carrying capacity K?

Answer 1

The life time of offspring has effects on the population but not on K.

Individuals that live longer and produce more offspring tend to have greater effective and growth rates; as a result, an iteroparous population will most likely reach K faster than a semelparous population, which has only one reproductive event. However, if the habitat remains unchanged and the resources remain unchanged, K will remain unchanged.

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Answer 2

Olivia Akins

The increased lifespan of offspring can affect population dynamics by potentially increasing the carrying capacity (K) if it leads to a larger proportion of individuals surviving to reproductive age, thereby increasing the overall population size. However, other factors such as resource availability, environmental conditions, and competition can also influence carrying capacity.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.