A limiting factor causes a population to decrease in size. A few limiting factors are food, shelter, water, space. These are not all limited to the condition of the species. Somefactors may be increased or reduced based on circumstances. An example of a limiting factor is sunlight in the rain forest, where growth is limited to all plants in the under story unless more light becomes available. This decreases plants photosynthesis.
A number of potential factors could influence a biological process, but importantly only one is limiting at any one place and time. This recognition that there is always a single limiting factor is vital in ecology; and the concept has parallels in numerous other processes.
Some other limiting factors in biology are water availability, temperature, shelter, or predatation. See Liebig's Law.
Famous quotes containing the words limiting and/or factor:
“A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it—by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.”
—Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)