Real populations are not typically found at their carrying capacity for very long because they are dynamic and changing all the time.
Populations may be increasing or contracting in time due to changes in the environmental conditions or in the biotic environment.
There have been many reasons proposed to explain a population’s flux around the carrying capacity.
Some common explanations are due to a timelag between the population size and its effects on population density or due to the stochastic nature of the environment.
Paul Bolstad, University of Minnesota, www.forestryimages.org
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