Sea gulls prey on snails on the rocky sea coast. The snails vary in color from solid brown to brown and tan striped. The birds s
uck the soft snail bodies out of the shells and leave the shells behind on the rocks. Scientists picked up 500 empty shells and found that 400 of the shells were solid brown and only 100 were striped. Over the years, what would you expect to happen to the snail population?
Considering the sea gull feeds on snails leaving the shells anywhere, it would not be surprising that in the coming years to come, the species of snails will dwindle. Based on the digits given, if such scenario continues to happen, we will eventually lose our snails.
The carrying capacity of this population would be 125. We know this because we see that this number occurs multiple times and seems to be the tipping point after which the number of the population always goes down. With that said, we can make the inference that the carrying capacity probably is 125.
There is no such unique standard method—scientific progress requires many methods—but students in introductory science courses are taught that `The Scientific Method' is a straightforward procedure, involving testing hypotheses derived from theories in order to test those theories.
