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How Fast Does Darwin’s Elephant Population Grow?

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Abstract

In “The Origin of Species,” Darwin describes a hypothetical example illustrating that large, slowly reproducing mammals such as the elephant can reach very large numbers if population growth is not affected by regulating factors. The elephant example has since been cited in various forms in a wide variety of books, ranging from educational material to encyclopedias. However, Darwin’s text was changed over the six editions of the book, although some errors in the mathematics persisted throughout. In addition, full details of the problem remained hidden in his correspondence with readers of the Origin. As a result, Darwin’s example is very often misinterpreted, misunderstood or presented as if it were a fact. We show that the population growth of Darwin’s elephant population can be modeled by the Leslie matrix method, which we generalize here to males as well. Darwin’s most often cited figure, about 19 million elephants after 750 years is not a typical outcome, actually a very unlikely result under more realistic, although still hypothetical situations. We provide a recursion formula suggesting that Darwin’s original model corresponds to a tribonacci series, a proof showing that sex ratio is constant over all age classes, and a derivation of a generating function of the sequence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Systematics, Ecology and Theoretical Biology, Institute of Biology, Eötvös University, Pázmány P. s. 1.C, 1117, Budapest, Hungary

    János Podani

  2. MTA-ELTE-MTM Ecology Research Group, Eötvös University, Pázmány P. s. 1.C, 1117, Budapest, Hungary

    János Podani & Ádám Kun

  3. MTA-ELTE Theoretical Biology and Evolutionary Ecology Research Group, Eötvös University, Pázmány P. s. 1.C, 1117, Budapest, Hungary

    András Szilágyi

Authors
  1. János Podani
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  2. Ádám Kun
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  3. András Szilágyi
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Correspondence to János Podani.

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Podani, J., Kun, Á. & Szilágyi, A. How Fast Does Darwin’s Elephant Population Grow?. J Hist Biol 51, 259–281 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-017-9488-5

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