A type of plant is introduced into an ecosystem and quickly begins to take over. A scientist counts the number of plants after m months and develops the equation mc010-1.jpg to model the situation. Most recently, the scientist counted 138 plants. Assuming there are no limiting factors to the growth of the plants, about how many months have passed since the plants were first introduced?

Question

A type of plant is introduced into an ecosystem and quickly begins to take over. A scientist counts the number of plants after m months and develops the equation mc010-1.jpg to model the situation. Most recently, the scientist counted 138 plants. Assuming there are no limiting factors to the growth of the plants, about how many months have passed since the plants were first introduced?

Answer 1

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Answer 2

To find out how many months have passed since the plants were first introduced, we need to solve the equation mc010-1.jpg for m when the number of plants is 138.

The equation given by the scientist is:
mc010-1.jpg

We can substitute the given number of plants, 138, into the equation to solve for m:

138 = mc010-1.jpg

To isolate m, we can rearrange the equation:

mc010-1.jpg

mc010-1.jpg

m = mc010-1.jpg

Now we can solve for m by dividing both sides of the equation by 10:

m = 138 / 10

m = 13.8

Since we are counting months, we cannot have a fraction of a month. Therefore, we need to round up to the nearest whole number. Thus, approximately 14 months have passed since the plants were first introduced into the ecosystem.