Final answer:
Correct ans is 2) . A healthy population affected by a forest fire will likely experience a population crash. This is due to density-dependent limiting factors that inhibit growth once resources become too sparse to support the previously growing population.
Step-by-step explanation:
If a forest fire destroys an area affecting both a small population of trees and a large population of birds, the healthy population that was experiencing exponential growth will likely experience a population crash. This is because of a type of limiting factor that results from the loss of habitat and resources due to the fire, restricting the population's growth and bringing it below its carrying capacity. In biological terms, this is a density-dependent limiting factor, which typically reduces population size when the density of the population becomes too high and the resources are insufficient to support the large number of individuals.
The population may recover over time if the area is conducive to regeneration and if sufficient individuals survive to reproduce. However, the immediate effect of the fire is to drastically reduce available resources, thereby hindering the population's growth and potentially leading to a sharp decline in its numbers.
Answering the multiple-choice question, the most likely scenario given is option 2) It will experience a population crash. The type of limiting factor that causes this is a density-dependent limiting factor, often environmental, such as the availability of food, prevalence of disease, and habitat space. The forest fire has acted as an environmental shock that drastically reduced the resources necessary for the population's continued growth.