limiting factors
Food: Any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth.
Shelter: A place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger.
Water: A colorless, transparent, odorless, tasteless liquid that forms the seas, lakes, rivers, and rain and is the basis of the fluids of living organisms.
Space: A continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied.
Disease: A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.
Parasitism/Predation: A non-mutual symbiotic relationship between species, where one species, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. / The preying of one animal on others.
Nesting Sites: A pocketlike, usually more or less circular structure of twigs, grass, mud, etc., formed by a bird, often high in a tree, as a place in which to lay and incubate its eggs and rear its young; any protected place used by a bird for these purposes.
Weather: The state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc.
Shelter: A place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger.
Water: A colorless, transparent, odorless, tasteless liquid that forms the seas, lakes, rivers, and rain and is the basis of the fluids of living organisms.
Space: A continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied.
Disease: A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.
Parasitism/Predation: A non-mutual symbiotic relationship between species, where one species, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. / The preying of one animal on others.
Nesting Sites: A pocketlike, usually more or less circular structure of twigs, grass, mud, etc., formed by a bird, often high in a tree, as a place in which to lay and incubate its eggs and rear its young; any protected place used by a bird for these purposes.
Weather: The state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc.
What do Limiting Factors Include?
Competitors: Organisms that compete for the same resource. Parasites: an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense. Fires: combustion or burning, in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out bright light, heat, and smoke. Habitat: the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism. Predators: Animals that naturally prey on others. |
EXAMPLE:
A population of squirrels has become to grow out of hand due to the absence of hawks from hunting. The squirrels overpopulate, but then their population decreases greatly as food becomes scarce. Food would still be a valid limiting factor, even if the predator was removed from an ecosystem.
A population of squirrels has become to grow out of hand due to the absence of hawks from hunting. The squirrels overpopulate, but then their population decreases greatly as food becomes scarce. Food would still be a valid limiting factor, even if the predator was removed from an ecosystem.