Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) are constricting snakes that can reach enormous sizes (up to 7 meters in length). They are native to Southeast Asia but were released into southern Florida from the pet trade. Many other snakes occur naturally in this area. Are the introduced pythons a problem?
Burmese pythons were first found in the wetlands of Everglades National Park in the 1980s, but only rarely. The accompanying graph shows what happened next. Most of the data are derived from chance encounters of pythons on roads (pythons are notoriously difficult to find). How would you describe the type of population growth in pythons from 2000 to 2008?
a. Logistic
b. Exponential
c. Linear
d. Logarithmic

Question

Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) are constricting snakes that can reach enormous sizes (up to 7 meters in length). They are native to Southeast Asia but were released into southern Florida from the pet trade. Many other snakes occur naturally in this area. Are the introduced pythons a problem?

Burmese pythons were first found in the wetlands of Everglades National Park in the 1980s, but only rarely. The accompanying graph shows what happened next. Most of the data are derived from chance encounters of pythons on roads (pythons are notoriously difficult to find). How would you describe the type of population growth in pythons from 2000 to 2008?

a. Logistic

b. Exponential

c. Linear

d. Logarithmic

Bar graph showing the increase in Burmese pythons encountered from 2000 to 2008.

Accepted Answer

everyone. Let's take a look at this question together. Exponential growth is observed in a population when what happens. So let's talk about what we've learned about exponential growth and that we know that exponential growth looks something like this on a graph where here we have time and then here we'll put X. But that X could be the population size or any kind of changing variable that changes with time. And so exponential growth is when we have that large change over a short period of time. And so you can see here at this point in time that growth just keeps going vertical. And so what would happen in a population to cause that extreme vertical change in whatever the variable X. Is over that same period of time. And so looking at our answer choices, we can see that we have one clear option answer choice B. Because when we have that unlimited supply, meaning that we're never going to run, there's no reason for that X. Variable to change negatively. And so it's just going to keep going upwards until that sort resources runs out. But in this case this is unlimited. It's not going to. And so we're basically looking for some kind of factor that would not alter the population size in any way negatively. For example, answer choice A. We have that fixed carrying capacity, which means that that ecosystem only has so much space for a certain amount of people. And so that draft would eventually plateau. So A. Is incorrect. See the organisms re we produce a sexually that means that the gene flow would be restricted. And we also get that plateau, so C. Is incorrect. And then de any kind of competition, especially intra specific meaning between the species would cause some kind of death. And so we wouldn't have that extreme vertical change. And so answer choice D. Is also incorrect, meaning that answer choice B would be the only way to reach that exponential growth in a population. I hope you found this video to be helpful. Thank you and goodbye.

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Key Concepts

Population Growth Models

Invasive Species

Data Interpretation