Question

If a population is steady at its carrying capacity, but then a group of organisms from that species moves in to the same space occupied by the original population, what will happen to the carrying capacity of the combined population?

Answer 1

Answer:

It will remain relatively stable

Explanation:

The carrying capacity (k) of an environment is a factor that represents the maximum number of organisms of a particular species such environment can support based on the resources it has.

Below the carrying capacity, the population of a species still has the potential to increase due to resource availability, and above the carrying capacity, the population has the potential to reduce due to the overstretching of the available resources. Factors that keep the population from expanding significantly beyond the carrying capacity include competition for resources, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, etc.

Hence, if a population is steady at its carrying capacity and a group of organisms from that species moves into the same space occupied by the original population, the carrying capacity will only increase temporarily before factors such as competition and natural disasters operate to bring the carrying capacity to the normal level.