Adaptive Population Control

Abstract

In this chapter we model the action of a population that is collectively trying to control their population size by imperfectly recalling much of what they have done in terms of birth rate control over the recent past. They assess the gap between their current population size and that size dictated by their physical environment. It takes time to gain the information about these two population sizes. Once the population knows these levels, we assume they react by changing their birth rate. The new birth rate is an average of the ones remembered over the recent past. The death rate for this population and the level of the desired population size are dependent on the population density. The part of the model illustrated in Figure 21.1 captures these relationships among area, population density, death rates, and desired population level.

To make increased population the cause of improved agriculture, is to commit the absurd blunder of confounding cause and effect. Rogers, Political Economy, 1868