BioConcepts

populationpopulatio (lat.); population (fr.); Population (ger.)

• A group of animals, plants, or humans, within which breeding occurs. (OED 2011)
  category population

  c. -51 (BC)

  [Caesar suos a proelio continebat, ac satis habebat in praesentia hostem rapinis, pabulationibus populationibusque prohibere.

  Cicero (c. 51 BC). Commentarii de bello gallico I, 15, 2.]

  c. 50

  [ea res a populatione murum formi-carumque frumenta defendit […] aut si maturitatem serotini expectet, amittat vindemiam praecoquem, quae plerumque populationibus volucrum pluviisque aut ventis lacessita

  Columella (c. 50 AD). De re rustica 2, 19, 1; 3, 21, 5.]

  1801

  Sometimes one of these clumps of nests [of a small African bird of the Loxia genus] will extend a space of ten feet in diameter, and contain a population of several hundred individuals

  Barrow, J. (1801). An Account of Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa: 394.

  1803

  The population of the tribe is measured by the population of its herd

  Malthus, T.R. (1798/1803). An Essay on the Principle of Population: 100.

  1827

  population d’animaux

  Huot (1827). Quelques considérations géologiques sur la présence des débris d’animaux vertébrés dans les différentes couches de notre globe. Ann. Sci. Nat. 10, 261-291: 272.

  1852

  theory of population

  Spencer, H. (1852). A theory of population. Deduced from the general law of animal fertility. Westminster Rev. 57, 468-501: 500.

  1858

  the population of a species

  Wallace, A.R. (1858). On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type (in: Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. A Series of Essays, London 1870, 26-44): 28.

  1869

  The average age of marriage affects population in a threefold manner

  Galton, F. (1869). Hereditary Genius: 353.

  1897

  population

  Pearson, K. (1897). The Chances of Death, and Other Studies in Evolution, 2 vols.: I, 264; II, 54.

  1903

  Population [als] eine Bevölkerung, ein Bestand von Tieren oder von Pflanzen einer gegebenen Art (oder Rasse)

  Johannsen, W. (1903). Ueber Erblichkeit in Populationen und in reinen Linien. Ein Beitrag zur Beleuchtung schwebender Selektionsfragen: 2.

  1950

  A Mendelian population is a reproductive community of sexual and cross-fertilizing individuals which share in a common gene pool

  Dobzhansky, T. (1950). Mendelian populations and their evolution. Amer. Nat. 84, 401-418: 405; cf. id. (1937/51). Genetics and the Origin of Species: 15; Stebbins, G.L. (1950). Variation and Evolution in Plants: 38.

  1950

  In sexually reproducing organisms [...] a population may be defined as a group of individuals among which a larger or smaller amount of interbreeding and gene exchange can occur

  Stebbins, G.L. (1950). Variation and Evolution in Plants: 38.

  1953

  a group of individuals belonging to a single species, or to several species which are closely associated with each other, is called a population.

  Odum, E.P. (1953). Fundamentals of Ecology: 7. 

  1961

  Populations as the units of evolution […] In current biological usage ‘population’ refers to a group of individual organisms standing in certain relations to each other.

  Goudge, T.A. (1961). The Ascent of Life: 26

  1963

  [A population is] any group of individuals considered together at any one time because of features they have in common

  Davis, P.H. & Heywood, H. (1963). Principles of Angiosperm Taxonomy: 353.

  1964

  A population of a certain species is a group of individiduals of this species, which possess certain quantitative properties, and which is seperated from other groups of this species by discontinuities in the frequencies of interactions, the magnitude of these discontinuities being dependent on the nature of the group, and hence on the problem chosen for study

  Bakker, K. (1964). Backgrounds of controversies about population theories and their terminologies. Z. angew. Entomol. 53, 187-208: 189.

  1969

  A population is defined here as a reproducing group of individuals of one species, living in a certain area or volume

  Sladen, B.K. & Bang, F.B. (1969). Population growth and ecology. In: id. (eds.). Biology of Populations: 13.

  1972

  population group of individuals of a single species

  Krebs, C. (1972). Ecology. The Experimental Analysis of Distribution and Abundance: 637.

  1973

  A population is one or more individuals of the same species co-occurring in time and space

  McNaughton, S.J. & Wolf, L.L. (1973). General Ecology: 5.

  1978

  Population – a group of coevolutionary interacting demes or non-outcrossing organisms, which due to a common descent are genetically similar enough to be considered conspecific, yet do not interbreed sufficiently to be a panmictic unit [i.e., a deme]

  MacMahon, J.A., Phillips, D.L., Robinson, J.V. & Schimpf, D.J. (1978). Levels of biological organization: an organism-centered approach. BioScience 28, 700-704: 704.

  1997

  the concept of species is logically prior to, and independent of, any concept of aggregate and system of organisms—in particular that of population.

  Mahner, M. & Bunge, M. (1997). Foundations of Biophilosophy: 154.

  2009

  A Darwinian population in the minimal sense is a collection of causally connected individual things in which there is variation in character, which leads to differences in reproductive output (differences in how much or how quickly individuals reproduce), and which is inherited to some extent. Inheritance is understood as similarity between parent and offspring, due to the causal role of the parents.

  Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection: 39.

  2009

  A population consists at any given time of organisms all of whose non sex-related genes have relatively free access to all others in the group for purposes of such gene-recombination by means of normal sexual reproduction

  Matthen, M. (2009). Chicken, eggs, and speciation. Nous 43, 94-115: 106.

  2011

  Eine Population ist eine Menge von Organismen einer Art, die in einer Region leben, so dass eine gegenseitige Beeinflussung oder gemeinsame Reproduktion möglich ist. In selektionstheoretischer Perspektive ist eine Population eine Menge von Selektionseinheiten, die den gleichen Selektionsbedingungen und dem gleichen Selektionsregime unterliegen, bei denen also die Fitnesszunahme der Einheiten eines Typs (aufgrund eines Merkmals) mit einer Fitnessabnahme der Einheiten der anderen Typen (mit dem Alternativmerkmal) einhergeht.

  Toepfer, G. (2011). Historisches Wörterbuch der Biologie. Geschichte und Theorie der biologischen Grundbegriffe, vol 3: 114.