"Malcolm" wrote in message
...

In article , BAC
writes

"Malcolm" wrote in message
...

In article ,
snip

I am surprised you are not aware of this.

You shouldn't be. I have made my views on the matter clear on a number
of past occasions.

I await your examples of "the balance of nature" in action, of
populations that have managed to "stabilise in accordance with their
habitat".


He has you there, Malcolm - there are far more species with a stable
population than unstable. All the extinct ones.

Ho, ho!

I think, though, that you will need to consider whether, if an animal is
extinct, it can be said to have a population of any kind.....


For it to be extinct, it has to have a stable population of zero. No extant
species, of course, is likely to have a stable population (in the sense of a
static, fixed, unvarying number of individuals), even if it were possible to
count its numbers accurately at any given time.

I think what Angus means when he says populations 'stabilise in accordance
with their habitat' is that they tend towards equilibrium abundance. Of
course, there will be many factors likely to disturb any such equilibrium,
I'm sure he knows that, since it has been discussed at length here several
times in the past.

The 'balance of nature' he is on about is, I believe, a term to describe the
various mechanisms which prevent a population from increasing indefinitely
beyond the carrying capacity of its range.