Single Species Population Dynamics

Abstract

Attempts to understand population processes date back to the Middle Ages and earlier. Often, human populations were the focus of interest. Sir William Petty in about 1300 composed a table “shewing how the People might have doubled in the several ages of the World”, starting with 8 people one year after the Flood, 2700 years before the birth of Christ, and doubling at first every ten years but then at successively longer intervals of time to arrive at 320 million (not a bad estimate) by the year 1300. Real data show that doubling times were about 1000 years over this period of time, but more importantly that they have become successively shorter to reach about 35 years in the later 20th century. The rate of population growth has therefore been faster than exponential, as we can see in Figure 1.1