Liebig's Law Of
The Minimum
Liebig's Law of
the Minimum, often simply called Liebig's Law or the Law of the Minimum, is a
principle developed in agricultural science by Justus von Liebig. It states
that growth is controlled not by the total of resources available, but by the
scarcest resource. This concept was originally applied to plant or crop growth,
where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not
increase plant growth. Only by increasing the amount of the limiting nutrient
(the one most scarce in relation to "need") was the growth of a plant
or crop improved.
Shelford's Law
of Tolerance
More precisely,
each organism--whether the individual or the species population--is subject to
an ecological minimum, maximum, and optimum for any specific environmental
factor or complex of factors. The range from minimum to maximum represents the
limits of tolerance for the factor or complex. Significantly, if all known
factors are apparently within their respective ranges for the subject organism
and yet it fails, it is necessary to consider additional factors or a more
complete array of interrelationships, including interactions with other
organisms.
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