Bottleneck : Humanity's Impending Impasse: Humanity's Impending Impasse by William R. Catton Jr

Author:William R. Catton Jr. [Catton Jr., William R.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781462808380
Publisher: Xlibris US
Published: 2015-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

For any kind of use of any particular environment there is a rate or amount of use that can be exceeded only by reducing the subsequent suitability of that environment for that use.

To proceed from this principle to a definition of carrying capacity, we need first of all to recognize that living organisms always live by using some environment. Typically, each species has its own characteristic way of living (i.e., of using an environment). Living always involves the user making withdrawals from, and additions to, that environment. Certain kinds and amounts of withdrawals and additions are ecological characteristics of each user type. Thus, each species requires an environment whose features enable the necessary withdrawals and additions to be continually made. The “habitat” of any given species of user is an environment with suitable attributes for the life of that species. The amount of use of a given kind (i.e., by a given kind of user) that a particular environment can sustain indefinitely (i.e., without reduction of suitability as the use goes on) must depend on the rates of renewal of whatever attributes on-going use would continually tend to change.

Too little tiger habitat for the existing population of tigers could result in the suitability of the habitat to support tigers being progressively degraded by overuse. The tiger-preferred prey species in that habitat, for example, might be “harvested” faster than they could replace themselves. The supply of prey for the predators to consume would thus decline. The reason for the decline would consist in the fact that the tiger load was in excess of what that environment could “carry.” Tigers becoming man-eaters were practicing what economists have called “resource substitution,” a concept some economists have offered as panacea for any supposed resource shortage (or carrying capacity deficit).

Now the definition:

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