The rate at which a population increases in size if there are no density-dependent forces regulating the population is known as the intrinsic rate of increase.
Where (dN/dt) is the rate of increase of the population and N is the population size, r is the intrinsic rate of increase. This is therefore the theoretical maximum rate of increase of a population per individual . The concept is commonly used in insect population biology to determine how environmental factors affect the rate at which pest populations increase. See also exponential population growth and logistic population growth.
Read more about this topic: Population Dynamics
Famous quotes containing the words intrinsic, rate and/or increase:
“Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand—a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods—or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“If you could choose your parents,... we would rather have a mother who felt a sense of guilt—at any rate who felt responsible, and felt that if things went wrong it was probably her fault—we’d rather have that than a mother who immediately turned to an outside thing to explain everything, and said it was due to the thunderstorm last night or some quite outside phenomenon and didn’t take responsibility for anything.”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)
“There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbours. This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)