Energy storage and structure support
The answer is A: convergent boundary zones. The various Japanese islands formed due to the subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate below the continental Amurian Plate and Okinawa Plate to the south, and subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Okhotsk Plate to the north. This occurred during the mid-Silurian to the Pleistocene . This explains why much of Japan is mountainous.
One of the things that controls population growth is the availability of food, the birth rate and death rate, the maximum carrying capacity of an area, and disease.
