The biotic potential is the potential population size that a species can reach. There are several factors that influence this potential. If the threshold of the biotic potential is breeched, then there is the potential for the population to become crowded and starve, due to a lack of necessary resources for their survival.

One of the most common reasons for the exceeding of the biotic potential is that the species no longer has any natural predators. One example is the deer population. Deer were originally hunted by bears, wolves and mountain cats. However, as these predators began to disappear from different regions, the deer population began to explode. Now the deer must be hunted in order to prevent them from running out of resources and dying due to starvation.

Biotic potential is the maximum amount of growth a population can sustain. There are two different factors that help to control the population of a particular species: the abiotic factors and the biotic factors. These two factors each have different means of controlling the species population, but they work together in order to keep a balance in nature.

The abiotic factors are those factors that are not living. These include water, nutrients, sunlight and soil. These factors are necessary to create plants and sustain an ecosystem. If there is an overabundance of life, where the biotic potential is exceeded, there will not be enough water for all of that life, not enough nutrients to feed everything, overcrowding which limits the sunlight and the soil will become exhausted. This will cause a failure of plant life and, ultimately, a failure of animal life.

Biotic factors that determine the biotic potential of a species are caused by other living organisms putting pressure on the species, including predation, competition, disease and unfavorable genetic traits. If there is too much predation, the population will dwindle as more individuals are eaten. If there is competition, there will be resources taken by that competition that will limit the growth of the species. Disease can very quickly limit the size of a species or even completely decimate a species. Unfavorable genetic traits are those traits that are less likely to be passed on in favor of traits that help the species. If the species is unable to evolve with the environment, the species may fail and become extinct.