North Carolina Youth Hunter Education Skills Tournament (YHEST) Practice Test

Carrying capacity is the maximum number of individuals a given environment can support indefinitely with the resources available. It reflects how food, water, shelter, space, and other factors limit growth over the long term. As a population grows and resources become tighter, the growth rate slows and the population stabilizes near that level. If conditions improve, carrying capacity can rise; if they worsen, it can fall. This idea differs from the smallest population needed for persistence (minimum viable population), the intrinsic rate of increase (growth under ideal conditions), or a habitat’s ability to generate resources, which isn’t itself the population size that can be sustained.