ECOLOGICAL TRAP

Charles François (2004). ECOLOGICAL TRAP, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(1): 1003.

Collection	International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics
Year	2004
Vol. (num.)	2(1)
ID	◀ 1003 ▶
Object type	General information, Human sciences, Methodology or model

Any situation in which a population perturbs its environment to the point of being unable to survive.

G. VICKERS, who introduced the expression, explains it as follows: “A population in a favourable but unfilled habitat normally multiplies at a constant rate until it meets or breeds limitations which slow and in time arrest its growth. It may then stabilize, at or below its maximum, in the same or an altered form, with oscillations of less or greater amplitude; or it may even disappear, because in its period of expansion it has either unfitted itself for life in a limited environment or unfitted its environment to support even a limited population” (1967, p.61).

This is a much more subtle and adequate formulation of the old Malthusian principle. There is probably nothing more important for mankind in all system science than this nugget of ecological wisdom.

See also