AY Honors/Ecology - Advanced/Answer Key

2006-11-16T01:10:16Z

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'''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 [[Natural resource|resources]] available, but by the [[limiting factor|scarcest]] resource. This concept was originally applied to [[plant]] or [[agriculture|crop]] growth, where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful [[nutrient]]s 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.

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Liebig used the image of a barrel—now called '''Liebig's barrel'''—to explain his law. Just as the capacity of a barrel with staves of unequal length is limited by the shortest stave, so a plant's growth is limited by the nutrient in shortest supply.

Liebig's Law has been extended to biological [[population]]s. For example, the growth of a biological population may not be limited by the total amount of resources available throughout the [[year]], but by the minimum amount of resources available to that population at the time of year of greatest scarcity. That is, the growth of a population of [[animal]]s might depend not on how much [[food]] is available in [[summer]], but on how much food is available in [[winter]].

This is closely related to the chemical principle of the [[rate determining step]], and also to the project management principles of [[critical path]] and [[critical chain]].

[[Category:Agronomy]]
[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Ecology]]
[[Category:Eponymous laws]]

[[da:Minimumsloven]]
[[de:Liebigsches Minimumgesetz]]
[[fr:Loi de Liebig sur le minimum]]
[[pl:Prawo minimum Liebiga]]
[[sv:Liebigs minimilag]]

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AY Honors/Ecology - Advanced/Answer Key