Question

The park had 50 deer in 2020, 75 deer in 2021, 112 deer in 2022, and 168 deer in 2023. What type of population growth pattern does this data demonstrate?
Question 3 options:

Linear growth with constant yearly increases of 25 deer

Declining growth due to increasing environmental resistance

Logistic growth approaching the carrying capacity limit

Exponential growth with accelerating increases each year
Page 3 of 10

Answer 1

Exponential growth with accelerating increases each year.

Reason: year-to-year increases grow (25 → 37 → 56) and the population multiplies by about 1.5 each year (75/50 ≈ 1.5, 112/75 ≈ 1.49, 168/112 = 1.5), consistent with exponential growth.