Step 4: Limiting Factors
All populations in an ecosystem are limited in their growth. This means that for an established ecosystem, the amount of organisms in each population cannot exceed a certain amount. This limit can be created by natural things like a lack of food, water or nesting locations, predators, illnesses and extreme weather. Other times, human interaction limits the populations in an ecosystem--pollution, urban sprawl, and land homogenization (where all the land is made the same which reduces biodiversity). This is what you need to have in your project:
- What natural limiting factors are present in the ecosystem? Does food, water, temperature or some other factor limit the populations in the ecosystem? How do the species living there cope with these factors?
- How has humankind changed or disrupted this ecosystem? Is pollution, development of land or other human activity causing this ecosystem to be endangered or changed dramatically?