Influence of technological progress and renewability on the sustainability of ecosystem engineers populations
| Autor: | José F. Fontanari, Guilherme M. Lopes |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Societal collapse
Conservation of Natural Resources Food Chain SIMULAÇÃO Natural resource economics Population Dynamics Population FOS: Physical sciences 02 engineering and technology Ecosystem engineer Oscillometry 0502 economics and business Overpopulation 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering Economics Animals Humans Population growth Carrying capacity Computer Simulation Population Growth education Quantitative Biology - Populations and Evolution Environmental degradation Ecosystem Probability Population Density education.field_of_study Applied Mathematics 05 social sciences Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) General Medicine Models Theoretical Nonlinear Sciences - Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems Computational Mathematics Predatory Behavior FOS: Biological sciences Modeling and Simulation Sustainability 020201 artificial intelligence & image processing General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems (nlin.AO) 050203 business & management |
| Zdroj: | Repositório Institucional da USP (Biblioteca Digital da Produção Intelectual) Universidade de São Paulo (USP) instacron:USP |
| Popis: | Overpopulation and environmental degradation due to inadequate resource-use are outcomes of human's ecosystem engineering that has profoundly modified the world's landscape. Despite the age-old concern that unchecked population and economic growth may be unsustainable, the prospect of societal collapse remains contentious today. Contrasting with the usual approach to modeling human-nature interactions, which are based on the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model with humans as the predators and nature as the prey, here we address this issue using a discrete-time population dynamics model of ecosystem engineers. The growth of the population of engineers is modeled by the Beverton-Holt equation with a density-dependent carrying capacity that is proportional to the number of usable habitats. These habitats (e.g., farms) are the products of the work of the individuals on the virgin habitats (e.g., native forests), hence the denomination engineers of ecosystems to those agents. The human-made habitats decay into degraded habitats, which eventually regenerate into virgin habitats. For slow regeneration resources, we find that the dynamics is dominated by rounds of prosperity and collapse, in which the population reaches vanishing small densities. However, increase of the efficiency of the engineers to explore the resources eliminates the dangerous oscillatory patterns of feast and famine and leads to a stable equilibrium that balances population growth and resource availability. This finding supports the viewpoint of growth optimists that technological progress may avoid collapse. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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