| Description |
In the past fifty years, several attempts have been made to mathematically analyze the growth patterns of various populations. The goal of such research is to find equations describing the size of a population at a given time in terms of factors such as the birth and death rates of individuals in the population. Two characteristics are generally required of such "models": first, that their results be experimentally verified (i.e., that population estimates calculated from the equation adequately approximate "reality"); and, secondly, that they give us some insight into the nature of the biological system under study (such as what factors cause the size of the population to vary as it does). Such models have been proposed to describe the population patterns of several different organisms, ranging from bacteria and flour beetles to sea lampreys and, of course, humans. |
