∞ generated and posted on 2016.08.29 ∞
Increase in population size that at first is unconstrained but subsequently is limited by resource availability.
All populations, if given sufficient resources, will increase in number and do so exponentially, with, for example, one organism producing two and two organisms producing four and four eight, etc. Population growth cannot go on forever, though, unless resources as well as environments are unlimited.
Instead, individuals making up a given population will find resources increasingly difficult to obtain as population densities increase, resulting in a slowing and then a stopping of population growth.
With logistic growth the exponential growth observed when populations are small, and therefore when resources are abundant, is followed by a , called carrying capacity, where individual population members are struggling sufficiently that births exactly balance deaths (that is, zero population growth).