"The causes which check the natural tendency of each species to increase are most obscure." Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 2nd edition
I would say that this question went largely unanswered until recently. What was it that shed the most light on this question? Was it a technology?
I would argue that the question of population regulation is best addressed analytically. Getting the data to answer the question is easy: counting babies, individuals, marking, capturing, etc. But the data by themselves tell us nothing.
Leslie or Lefcovitch population models address this question directly and, though these tools have been a around for a few decades, the raw data, the computing power, and the stastical methods (e.g., Bayesian and maximum likelihood) were not able to come together until recently.
"The causes which check the natural tendency of each species to increase are most obscure." Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 2nd edition
I would argue that the question of population regulation is best addressed analytically. Getting the data to answer the question is easy: counting babies, individuals, marking, capturing, etc. But the data by themselves tell us nothing.
Leslie or Lefcovitch population models address this question directly and, though these tools have been a around for a few decades, the raw data, the computing power, and the stastical methods (e.g., Bayesian and maximum likelihood) were not able to come together until recently.
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