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A growth curve is an empirical model of the evolution of a quantity over time. Growth curves are widely used in biology for quantities such as population size or biomass (in population ecology and demography, for population growth analysis), individual body height or biomass (in physiology, for growth analysis of individuals). Values for the ...
The first principle of population dynamics is widely regarded as the exponential law of Malthus, as modelled by the Malthusian growth model.The early period was dominated by demographic studies such as the work of Benjamin Gompertz and Pierre François Verhulst in the early 19th century, who refined and adjusted the Malthusian demographic model.
Population dynamics overlap with another active area of research in mathematical biology: mathematical epidemiology, the study of infectious disease affecting populations. Various models of viral spread have been proposed and analysed, and provide important results that may be applied to health policy decisions.
One of the most basic and milestone models of population growth was the logistic model of population growth formulated by Pierre François Verhulst in 1838. The logistic model takes the shape of a sigmoid curve and describes the growth of a population as exponential, followed by a decrease in growth, and bound by a carrying capacity due to ...
Population biology is especially concerned with the Gompertz function. This function is especially useful in describing the rapid growth of a certain population of organisms while also being able to account for the eventual horizontal asymptote, once the carrying capacity is determined (plateau cell/population number). It is modeled as follows:
P 0 = P(0) is the initial population size, r = the population growth rate, which Ronald Fisher called the Malthusian parameter of population growth in The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, [2] and Alfred J. Lotka called the intrinsic rate of increase, [3] [4] t = time. The model can also be written in the form of a differential equation:
Here r is interpreted as an intrinsic growth rate and k as the carrying capacity of the environment. Unlike some other models like the Logistic map , the carrying capacity in the Ricker model is not a hard barrier that cannot be exceeded by the population, but it only determines the overall scale of the population.
Growth curve can refer to: Growth curve (statistics), an empirical model of the evolution of a quantity over time. Growth curve (biology), a statistical growth curve used to model a biological quantity. Curve of growth (astronomy), the relation between the equivalent width and the optical depth