If there were 20 lotus plants last year in a pond and through reproduction 8 new plants are added, taking the current population to 28. What is the birth rate (natality) as a population attribute for this period?

Step-by-step solution

A population has certain attributes that an individual organism does not possess. An individual has birth and death, but a population has birth rates and death rates. In a population, these rates refer to per capita births and deaths. Initial population size = 20 Number of new plants added (births) = 8 Birth rate = Number of new births Initial population size Birth rate = 8 20 = 0.4 offspring per lotus per year. Using the final population (28) as the denominator yields the incorrect 0.28, while inverting the ratio