Report by : Eleanor Saguit

Limiting factors 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.

 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

Cat tails

 The continuous survival of any organism depends

upon certain specific sets of conditions in the surroundings. If such conditions are limited, then the organism's survival is likewise inadequate. However if the organism learn to survive, then they are able to tolerate any set of conditions surrounding them. Tolerance is the ability of organisms to withstand variety of environmental conditions.

 Law of the Minimum

Proposed by Justus von Liebig in 1840. It says that the success of organism determined by crucial ingredient that is in short supply. As abundance of one resource increases another resource may become limiting. Also known as Liebig's Law of Minimum - a system maybe limited by the absence or minimum amount (in terms of that needed) of any required factor. What this law states is that the rarest requirement of an organism will be the limiting factor to its performance.

 Law of Tolerance

Proposed by Victor Shelford in 1913. This is an extension of the Law of the Minimum. It refers to the upper and lower bounds to physical environment an organism can tolerate. These boundaries affect the ability to function, grow, and reproduce. These changes can be broad and narrow.

Ecological Niche
In ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational

position of a species or population in an ecosystem.

More formally, the niche includes how a population

responds to the abundance of its resources and enemies

Homeostasis in the Ecosystem

Homeostasis (from Greek: , hmoios, "similar,

and , stsis, "standing still) is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties such as temperature or pH. It can be either an open or closed system. In chemistry, pH is a measure of the activity of the (solvated) hydrogen ion.

Example

Ecosystem Stability & Homeostasis

Ecosystems require stability to survive. Homeostasis refers to the properties in a system that

enable it to remain stable. This can refer to a living organism, but it also applies to an ecosystem. Homeostasis and stability are both important to the well-being of any ecosystem.

Example

Explain the homeostasis of the ecosystem?

It is also known as a biological equilibrium. This is also

referred as a balance of nature. An ecosystem maintains a biological equilibrium between the different components and is referred as a homeostasis It keeps on changing with the time and is not static. The balance is maintained by the number of factors. These include the carrying capacity of the environment and the capacity for recycling of the waste.

Types of Ecosystem
Ecosystem refers to an interdependent group of

natural elements and organisms that exist in a particular environment and the habitat with which these elements interact. Ecosystems are important because they sustain the natural world, providing humans with the resources we require in order to live and thrive.

 Terrestrial ecosystems

Terrestrial ecosystems can be found anywhere apart from heavily saturated places. Aquatic Ecosystems The aquatic ecosystem is the ecosystem found in a body of water. It encompasses aquatic flora, fauna and water properties, as well. There are two main types of aquatic ecosystem - Marine and Freshwater.