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Liebig's law states that growth only occurs at the rate permitted by the most limiting factor. [ 2 ] For instance, in the equation below, the growth of population O {\displaystyle O} is a function of the minimum of three Michaelis-Menten terms representing limitation by factors I {\displaystyle I} , N {\displaystyle N} and P {\displaystyle P} .
Limiting factors may be physical or biological. [4]: 417, 8 Limiting factors are not limited to the condition of the species. Some factors may be increased or reduced based on circumstances. An example of a limiting factor is sunlight in the rain forest, where growth is limited to all plants on the forest floor unless more light becomes ...
A low level of one factor can sometimes be partially compensated for by appropriate levels of other factors. In case of chemical reactions it is known as law of limiting factor. A corollary to this is that two factors may work synergistically (e.g. 1 + 1 = 5), to make a habitat favorable or unfavorable. Geographic distribution of sugar maple.
In most cases combinations of factors are responsible for limiting the geographic range edge of species. Abiotic and biotic factors may work together in determining the range of a species. An example might be some obligate seeder plants where the distribution is limited by the presence of wildfires, which are needed to allow their seed bank to ...
A vague answer to this question is that the more similar two species are, the more finely balanced the suitability of their environment must be in order to allow coexistence. There are limits to the amount of niche differentiation required for coexistence, and this can vary with the type of resource, the nature of the environment, and the ...
Biological constraints are factors which make populations resistant to evolutionary change. One proposed definition of constraint is "A property of a trait that, although possibly adaptive in the environment in which it originally evolved, acts to place limits on the production of new phenotypic variants."
The key weakness of the theory of limiting similarity is that it is highly system specific and thus difficult to test in practice. In actual environments, one resource axis is inadequate and a specific analysis must be done for each given pair of species. In practice it is necessary to take into account:
Resource availability is essential for the unimpeded growth of a population. Examples of resources organisms use are food, water, shelter, sunlight, and nutrients.[1][2] Ideally, when resources in the habitat are unlimited, each species can fully realize its innate potential to grow in number, as Charles Darwin observed while developing his theory of natural selection.