Zoology 10th Edition by Stephen Miller,John Harley

Exercise 13

Biotic factors acting within a population include how populations survive and grow, how population growth is regulated, and how members of a population compete with each other for limited resources. During exponential growth, populations increase by a constant ratio per unit time. At carrying capacity, a population has reached a particular maximum size that an environment can support. Density-independent factors such as temperature influence the number of individuals in a population without regard to population size. Density-dependent factors such as food and space are more severe when population density is high.
Some animals produce many offspring that require very little parental care. Other animals produce few offspring that require intensive parental care. What is the evolutionary trade-off involved with each strategy?