Every year you travel to the Kalahari Desert in Botswana to study meerkats (Suricata suricatta), a small carnivore belonging to the mongoose family. As you survey the various populations of meerkats and analyze the data, you realize that population growth is most influenced by the…

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The question asks which factor most influences population growth in meerkats. To approach this, I will evaluate each option in turn.

a. amount of resources (food) available. This is a strong candidate because resources directly affect survival and reproduction; in many social mammals, food availability limits carrying capacity and growth rates. If food is scarce, mortality can rise and birth rates may fall, limiting population growth. However, although crucial, meerkat populations are also influenced by social structure and reproductive dynamics, so this option may not capture the single strongest driver in all contexts.

b. spread of disease in the group. Disease can impact populations, especially in social species where close contact facilitates transmission. Yet, disease is typically a modulating factor that interacts with resource availability and social behavior rather than the primary determinant of growth across all populations. Therefore, while important, it is less likely to be the overarching driver of growth compared to reproductive biology and social organization.

c. number of females in the group. This option directly ties to reproductive output: in many mammalian social groups, the number of breeding females largely determines the number of offspring produced, thus strongly shaping population growth. If more females can reproduce, more pups are born, increasing growth potential, assuming other factors permit survival. This aligns with fundamental population ecology: fecundity and the number of breeders are primary drivers of growth.

d. number of active predators. Predation risk influences survival, particularly of vulnerable juveniles, but in a typical meerkat system, while predation pressure matters, it does not necessarily scale population growth as consistently as the reproductive capacity of the group. Predators can cause mortality, yet populations often compensate via social behavior and reproduction; thus this is not the single strongest predictor of growth.

e. size of the group’s home range. The home range size relates to space and resource distribution, which can affect carrying capacity and movement. While it can influence access to resources and social interactions, it does not directly determine the capacity for growth as strongly as the number of breeding individuals, since growth hinges on births minus deaths within the group.

Across these options, option c—the number of females in the group—best captures the primary determinant of potential population growth, because it directly controls the reproductive output that adds new individuals to the population. The other factors (resources, disease, predators, and range size) influence growth indirectly or in context-dependent ways, but they do not replace the central role of breeding females in driving increases in population size.

BIO 181 (001&002) FALL 2025 FA25: Cumulative Exam 4 covers the most important content from Units 1-4: You can do this!!! : ) [Grade is out of 150/900 pts, the same am't of pts for the active learning "easy points" classwork.]

Every year you travel to the Kalahari Desert in Botswana to study meerkats (Suricata suricatta), a small carnivore belonging to the mongoose family. As you survey the various populations of meerkats and analyze the data, you realize that population growth is most influenced by the…

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