Population Ecology Hands-On Labs, Inc. Version 42-0281-00-02 Review the safety materials and wear goggles when working with chemicals. Read the entire exercise before you begin. Take time to organize the materials you will need and set aside a safe work space in which to complete the exercise. Experiment Summary: You will explore the field of population ecology and survey factors involved in the decline, expansion, and maintenance of a population. Simulated growth of a population will be modeled, graphed, and analyzed. You will use quantitative data from a cemetery population to study demographics. www.HOLscience.com 1 © Hands-On Labs, Inc. EXPERIMENT Learning Objectives Upon completion of this laboratory, you will be able to: ● Define species, population, and metapopulation. ● Differentiate between density-dependent and density-independent factors and describe how each can influence population size. ● Outline factors that influence carrying capacity and describe the potential consequences of overpopulation. ● Illustrate graphs of linear and exponential population growth. ● Describe how demography data may be used to calculate probability of mortality. ● Model population growth and determine if the growth was linear, exponential, or had no observable pattern. ●