How do the availability of water and light and the climate affect the growth of a population?
The availability of water and light and the climate are abiotic factors that limit the growth of a population. As the producers are responsible for the synthesis of organic material transferred along the food chains of an ecosystem, water and light affect the availability of food and a population cannot grow beyond the number of individuals the environment is able to feed. For instance, in the desert, the biomass is relatively small and populations that live in this ecosystem are smaller (compared to the similar species in environments with large available biomass). The climate, including the temperature, affects the population growth because excessive alter in this factor, as the occurrence of droughts or floods, might be cause significant population decline; small climatic changes can also change the photosynthesis rate and decrease the availability of food in the ecosystem.