Fertility

Fertility is the natural capability to give life. In humans and animals, fertility means that the parent can produce babies.

More precisely, fertility is the capacity of an individual or population to produce viable offspring.^[1] By 'viable' is meant 'able to live and reproduce'.

In agriculture, fertility means that a soil can support the growth of plants because it contains the right minerals and nutrients.^[2]

Fertility can also be used as a metaphor: having a "fertile imagination" means being able to think of many new and interesting things.

As a measure, fertility rate is the number of children born per couple, or person or population. This is different to fecundity. This is defined as the potential for reproduction (influenced by gamete production, fertilisation and carrying a pregnancy to term. In English language, the term was originally applied only to females, but increasingly is applied to males as well, as common understanding of reproductive mechanisms increases and the importance of the male role is better known. Infertility is a deficient fertility.

Human fertility depends on factors of nutrition, sexual behavior, culture, instinct, endocrinology, timing, economics, way of life, and emotions. Animal fertility is no less complex, and may display astounding mechanisms.

1. ↑ King R.C. et al. (2006). A Dictionary of genetics. 7th ed, Oxford University Press. p. 234
2. ↑ "Soil Fertility: Definition, Types and Factors | Soil Science". 22 March 2018.