Tue, 08 Jul 2014 08:02 UTC
In 1950, an American ethologist named John Calhoun created a series of experiments to test the effects of overpopulation on the behaviour of social animals. The animals which Calhoun chose for his experiments where mice (and later on rats). He chose rodents as these reproduce rapidly thus allowing him to observe the development of several generations of mice in a relatively short space of time.
Calhoun and his researchers found that
in a space-limited/resource unlimited environment, the population of mice would explode; peak-out and then collapse to extinction. This test was replicated several times and it was found that these led to the same outcome each time. The reason for this phenomenon was found to derived from social decay which worsened with each generation. The social decay led to unrest in the environment, which in turn led to sub replacement fertility. It was concluded that nature has a limit in which social animals can interact.