Diana Jones

Biology 1120
Exponential Population Growth

For this assignment, I used a regular bell pepper, scraped out all of the seeds, and counted out
107 of them. Assuming that each one of these seeds where to survive to make it into adult plants,
and each generation were to likewise produce the same amount of offspring, within 5 generations
there would be 14,025,517,307 bell pepper plants.
My graph shows the rate of growth from the first generation of bell peppers to the fifth
generation. This is a basic graph, so as to be easily understood and adequately show the spike of
growth once my bell peppers hit the 5th generation.
Some of the things I think would decrease the rate of natural production, within any given
population (and also in correlation with what I have learned so far within this semester) could
very possibly be competition, if two of the same species are in competition for a resource, it may
limit the amount of the resource for the defeated member and thus lower his/her rate of survival
and reproduction. Predation is also a possible factor in decreasing the rate of growth. In the
example of my bell peppers if an herbivore where to eat half of my plants, I would be looking at
only half of the predicted amount of plants for the next succeeding generation. I also believe that
climate could affect the growth and rate of reproduction, loss of or hindrance of fertility, and
lastly lack of carrying capacity due to overpopulation.
My bell pepper plants would most definitely see a decline in population if subjected to
these factors. As mentioned above, if the plants were a resource that are also a source of food to
another species, only the surviving amount of plants would be able to reproduce, also if half of
the environment had an adequate amount of sunlight, but the other half of the area was shielded,
some of the plants may be subjected to withering and would not survive. Likewise, if there was

an overpopulation of bell pepper plants ability and resources for the reproduction of plants
would be very limited, and eventually non-existent. Thinking of it in this way there would need
to be some way for previous plants to be cleared, either through predation or another factor in
order to clear resources for surviving generations of bell peppers.
16000000000
14000000000
12000000000

14,025,517,307

10000000000
8000000000
6000000000
4000000000
2000000000
0 107
1

11,449
2

1,225,043
3

131,079,601
4

Figure 1: Graph shows the number of bell pepper plants over a course of 5 years, if the plants in
question all survived to reproduce the succeeding generation.