ABSTRACT
Pollutants may damage organisms with lethal consequences (as described in Chapters 6 and 7). The effect on the population is then an increase in the mortality rate of at least one age class. Alternatively, there may be damage to, or effects on, the machinery of reproduction, resource acquisition and uptake. These effects are described in detail in this chapter. Where resource uptake is reduced, there are consequent reductions of birth rate and/or somatic growth rate (here, referred to jointly as ‘production rate’), and these depress population growth rate.
