carrying capacity

English

Noun

carrying capacity (plural carrying capacities)

  1. (transport) The number of people or things that a vehicle is designed to carry.
  2. (ecology) The number of individuals of a particular species that an environment can support.
    • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 120:
      With their populations adjusted to the carrying capacity of the environment, hunters and gatherers rarely starve, for they are not dependent on the fortunes of a single crop.

Derived terms
  • K (the standard abbreviation)

Translations

See also

Further reading
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