Does population play any importance role in SE4?

Speaking of MOO, I recall a trick I used to make population grow faster. I would ship one of every race to every system, then when I got the second split him off to the second world etc. Eventually I would have one of each race on each world with a rate 7+ times the normal.

Now my question is, would this work here ? Mixed atmospheres generate domed, but in my game I have lots of Oxygen breathers. So if I get more than one O2 race on an O2 world, will that grow 1/t for each race every turn ?

Also the moons would be useful population factories - one of every race since they are usually domed anyway...