Name ___________________________
Date ____________________________
Class Period ______________________
BIOLOGY
TURKEY TROUBLE: A POPULATION MODEL
In 1935 Wyoming had no Merriman's turkeys within its boarders. A decision was made to
plant 46 turkeys in a mountainous area of the state. This investigation will try to predict the
growth of this population.
Part 1: Compute the size of the population if Merriman's turkeys in Wyoming for five years,
using the following assumptions. Complete the information in table 1.
Assumptions:
1. None of the turkeys left the general area during the five years.
2. There was no disease or shortage of habitat that limited the population.
3. There was an equal number of males and females in each hatch.
4. All sexually mature females successfully hatched a clutch of ten eggs each year.
5. No turkeys reproduced their first year of life.
6. All turkeys died during the winter after their fifth year of life (after hatching their clutch).
7. All the turkeys introduced were one year old and sexually mature.
Part 2: Plot this information
on a graph with the time on the horizontal axis and the population
on the vertical axis.
Table 1:
Part 3: Compute the size of the population of Merriman's turkeys in Wyoming
growth model for five years based on the following assumptions.
Use table 2.
Assumptions:
1. 230 offspring were produced by the turkey population each year.
2. None of the turkeys left the area.
3. There was no disease or shortage of habitat to limit the population.
Part 4: Plot the data from Part 3 using the same scale as you did for part 2.
Table 2:
Discussion:
1. In the examples given, which growth pattern appears to be growing at a faster rate? ________
Why?________________________________________________________________________
2. The estimate of the true population of Merriman's turkeys by the Wyoming Game and Fish
Department at the end of five years was 2500. How can we account for the difference between
this number and your prediction?__________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
3. Which of the original assumptions might be faulty?__________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
4. All populations have the potential to grow at an exponential rate. What factors limit this
potential?_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________