Limiting factors

Every living organism has limits to the environmental conditions

A limiting factor or limiting resource is a factor that controls a population's growth,
such as organism growth or species population, size, or distribution.
Limiting factors includes space, water, and food. The availability of food, predation
pressure, or availability of shelter are examples of factors that could be limiting for
an organism. An example of a limiting factor is sunlight in the rainforest, where
growth is limited to all plants in the understory unless more light becomes available.
populations cannot grow forever. Some form of environmental resistance will stop
the population’s growth. The form of environmental resistance is called a limiting
factor since it limits the population. However, limiting factors may also increase
a population. We will look at many different limiting factors and classify them into
density independent factors and density dependent factors.
Examples of limiting factors of a population growth
A. Terrestrial Ecosystem
1. Temperature
2. Water
3. Moisture
4. Soil nutrients
B. Marine Ecosystem
1. Salinity
2. Temperature
3. Sunlight
4. Dissolved Oxygen
If an organism is to live and survive in its habitat, it must be able to obtain the
materials it needs for growth and reproduction. Anything that is essential to an
organism and for which there is competition is called a limiting factor. In an
open field, the oxygen content of the air would not be a limiting factor for a number
of grazing animals. But if the same number of animals were to be confined inside a
closed barn for some time, then oxygen becomes a limiting factor.
Let us take cattails for example. These plants grow along the shore of a lake where
the water is not too deep and soil condition is soft and muddy. Beyond that particular
area, the water will be deeper. In that depth of water, this cattail won't live nor grow.
So you could really say that the depth of the water as well as the soil condition
becomes the limiting factors of the growth of cattail.
Liebig’s law of the minimum
This “law” or “principle” of the minimum was formulated by Carl Sprengel, a
German botanist, as early as 1828. It became more well known when German
biochemist and professor Justus von Liebig publicized and studied it more widely
starting around 1840. that the rate of growth of a plant, the size to which it grows,
and its overall health depend on the amount of the scarcest of its essential nutrients
that is available to it. Liebig’s work became the foundation for laboratory oriented
teaching as it’s known today and earned him consideration as the “Father of the
fertilizer industry”. Simply put, Liebig’s Law of The Minimum summarizes that
plant growth and health is not controlled by the total amount of nutrients available
in the soil… But instead plant growth and health is controlled by the scarcest of the
nutrients available in the soil.
Liebig’s Law many times is summarized with the icon of a leaking bucket. The
factor of which is the weakest or slowest on the bucket is where the bucket leaks. It
is also described using a chain example – the weakest link in the chain is where the
chain will break.
The supply of mineral nutrition to plants depends on the soil, the plant, and the
microbes of the soil food web. The way these systems interact is a crucial and highly
dynamic process – nutrient shortages (relative and absolute!) can and do impact plant
growth, health, and fruiting at critical times in the growing season. Critical shortages
of any particular element may stunt or even stop the growth of a plant even though
other nutrients might be in plentiful supply. A typical example of an information
feedback loop between these systems causing a problem would be the “stunting” of
a young plant.
Carrying Capacity
Imagine our planet as a global bus. If a bus has enough seats for fifty passengers, we
would all agree that we could crowd a few extra persons on board in an
emergency. But how many extras could the vehicle accommodate? What if 291
passengers climb aboard, or 937, or 7428?
Clearly, at some point, a critical system would fail. The engine would overheat, the
tires would blow, the axles would break, the transmission would fail, or the engine
would blow a gasket. In all likelihood, the first system to be affected by crowding
would be the restroom at the back of the bus which would overflow as the amount
of waste generated by the passengers overwhelmed its capacity to accommodate
those wastes.
How many organisms can a particular ecosystem [or planet] support over a long
period of time without suffering severe or irreparable damage? To scientists, the
answer to such a question constitutes the system's carrying capacity. Since
ecosystems are finite in their size and resources, each has an upper limit to the
population that it can support. In other words, each system has an upper limit to its
ability to provide food, resources, maintain itself, resist damage, and provide the
assorted ecological services that allow a given population to exist.
Hardin (1986) likens carrying capacity to an “engineer's…estimate of the carrying
capacity of a bridge." Biologists also sometimes use the term "thresholds" to refer to
limits that, when exceed-ed, constitute critical boundaries within a system.
A Limited Capacity to Accept Wastes
It is intuitively obvious to most of us that the carrying capacity of a particular
environment can be limited by the amount of food and other resources a population
requires. However, carrying capacities can also be limited by the ability of an
environment to accept and process the wastes of a given population.

niche
An ecological niche is the role and position a species has in its environment; It
describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources
and competitors and how it in turn alters those same factors.
how it meets its needs for food and shelter, how it survives, and how it reproduces.
A species' niche includes all of its interactions with the biotic and abiotic factors of
its environment. Biotic factors are living things, while abiotic factors are nonliving
things. It is advantageous for a species to occupy a unique niche in an ecosystem
because it reduces the amount of competition for resources that species will
encounter.
Fundamental niche
is the entire set of conditions under which an animal (population, species) can
survive and reproduce itself.
Realized niche
is the set of conditions actually used by given animal (pop, species), after interactions
with other species (predation and especially competition) have been taken into
account.
There are many factors which are important to the survival and success of a species.
For instance, a quail can tolerate ambient temperatures in midsummer between 30-
45°C. It eats seeds that range in size from 1-18 mm. The elevation of the habitat in
which it is found ranges from 0-30 cm above the ground. Although quail are found
throughout each of these ranges, they are found more often in some parts than in
others.

Combining all the factors that are relevant to the well-being of the quail produces a
3-dimensional "space" in the habitat that defines the niche of the species. Additional
factors can be included in the description of the ecological niche of the quail, but not
more than three dimensions can be graphically represented. If no other species in the
same guild are present in the same habitat, this graph represents the
quail's fundamental niche. If another species that utilizes the same resource is
present in the same habitat, then the two species will overlap in the use of the shared
resource.
If there is enough separation of the two niches
along the resource axis, there may be enough resources
for each species to coexist together in this habitat. Then,
it is likely that each species will occupy a realized niche
somewhat more restricted in size than its fundamental niche.

On the other hand, if the overlap is too great for

The species to share the resources, then they will
compete until one of the species ultimately goes extinct in the habitat. The similarity
in the use of resources beyond which competitive exclusion occurs is the limiting
similarity.

Succession
Succession is a series of progressive changes in the composition of an ecological
community over time.
Ecological succession is the process of change in the species structure of an
ecological community over time. The time scale can be decades, or even millions of
years after a mass extinction.
CAUSES OF SUCCESSION

Since succession involves a series of complex processes, so there exist many causes
of its occurrence. Ecologists have recognized the following three primary causes
of succession:
1. Initial or Initiating causes.
These are climatic as well as biotic in nature. The climatic causes include factors
such as erosion and deposits, wind, fire, etc., which arc caused by lightening or
volcanic: activity. The biotic causes include various activities of organisms. All
these causes produce the bare areas or destroy the existing populations in an area.
2. Ecesis or Continuing causes.
These are processes as migration, ecesis, aggregation, competition, reaction, etc.,
which cause successive waves of populations as a result of changes, chiefly in the
edaphic (soil) features of the area.
3. Stabilizing causes.
These include factors such as climate of the area which result in the stabilization of
the community.
BASIC TYPES OF SUCCESSION
Based on different criteria, there are following kinds of succession:
1.Primary succession.
If an area in any of the basic environments (such as terrestrial, freshwater or marine)
is colonized by organisms for the first time, the succession is called primary
succession. Thus, primary succession begins on a sterile area (an area not occupied
previously by a community), such as newly exposed rock or sand dune where the
conditions of existence may not be favourable initially.
2.Secondary succession.
If the area under colonization has been cleared by what soever agency (such as
burning, grazing, clearing, felling of trees, sudden change in climatic factors, etc.)
of the previous plants, it is called secondary succession. Usually the rate of
secondary' succession is faster than that of primary succession because of
better nutrient and other conditions in area previously under plant cover.

Association
In phytosociology and community ecology an association is a type of ecological
community with a predictable species composition, consistent physiognomy which
occurs in a particular habitat type. The term was first coined by Alexander von
Humboldt and formalized by the International Botanical Congress in 1910.

Type
Mutualism: Everyone Wins
Mutualism describes an interaction that benefits both species. A well-known
example exists in the mutualistic relationship between alga and fungus that form
lichens. The photosynthesizing alga supplies the fungus with nutrients, and gains
protection in return. The relationship also allows lichen to colonize habitats
inhospitable to either organism alone. In rare case, mutualistic partners cheat. Some
bees and birds receive food rewards without providing pollination services in
exchange. These "nectar robbers" chew a hole at the base of the flower and miss
contact with the reproductive structures.
Commensalism: A Positive/Zero Interaction
An interaction where one species benefits and the other remains unaffected is known
as commensalism. As an example, cattle egrets and brown-headed cowbirds forage
in close association with cattle and horses, feeding on insects flushed by the
movement of the livestock. The birds benefit from this relationship, but the livestock
generally do not. Often it's difficult to tease apart commensalism and mutualism. For
example, if the egret or cowbird feeds on ticks or other pests off of the animal's back,
the relationship is more aptly described as mutualistic.
Amensalism: A Negative/Zero Interaction
Amensalism describes an interaction in which the presence of one species has a
negative effect on another, but the first species is unaffected. For example, a herd of
elephants walking across a landscape may crush fragile plants. Amensalistic
interactions commonly result when one species produces a chemical compound that
is harmful to another species. The chemical juglone produced in the roots of black
walnut inhibit the growth of other trees and shrubs, but has no effect on the walnut
tree.

Name Description Effect

Organisms of two species use the same
limited resource and have a negative impact
Competition on each other. -/-

A member of one species, predator, eats all

or part of the body of a member of another
Predation species, prey. +/-

A special case of predation in which the prey

Herbivory species is a plant +/-

A long-term, close association between two

Mutualism species in which both partners benefit +/+

A long-term, close association between two

species in which one benefits and the other is
Commensalism unaffected +/0

A long-term, close association between two

species in which one benefits and the other is
Parasitism harmed +/-

Population ecology
Population ecology is the study of these and other questions about what factors affect
population and how and why a population changes over time. Population ecology
has its deepest historic roots, and its richest development, in the study of population
growth, regulation, and dynamics, or demography. Human population growth serves
as an important model for population ecologists, and is one of the most important
environmental issues of the twenty-first century. But all populations, from disease
organisms to wild-harvested fish stocks and forest trees to the species in a
successional series to laboratory fruit files and paramecia, have been the subject of
basic and applied population biology.

An organism’s life history is a record of major events relating to its growth,

development, reproduction, and survival. Life histories vary tremendously from one
species to the next. Why all the variation? For example, why do some organisms die
immediately after reproducing (some salmon and bamboos, many insects, and all
grain crops), while others live on to reproduce repeatedly (most plants and
vertebrates)?

The study of population ecology includes understanding, explaining, and predicting

species distributions. Why do species inhabit particular areas, and how are they
prevented from establishing beyond their range limits? Such range questions have
become popular in the last decade or so in response to concerns about climate
change.

Biodiversity
Biodiversity refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is
typically a measure of variation at the genetic, species, and ecosystem level.
The term was coined in 1985
Biodiversity, also called biological diversity, the variety of life found in a place on
Earth or, often, the total variety of life on Earth. A common measure of this variety,
called species richness, is the count of species in an area. Colombia and Kenya, for
example, each have more than 1,000 breeding species of birds, whereas the forests
of Great Britain and of eastern North America are home to fewer than 200. A coral
reef off northern Australia may have 500 species of fish
biodiversity is comprised of several levels, starting with genes, then individual
species, then communities of creatures and finally entire ecosystems, such as forests
or coral reefs, where life interplays with the physical environment. These myriad
interactions have made Earth habitable for billions of years.
Furthermore, biodiversity encompasses the genetic variety within each species and
the variety of ecosystems that species create.