Scientific Applications
Liebig's Law has been extended to biological populations (and is commonly used in ecosystem models). For example, the growth of an organism such as a plant may be dependent on a number of different factors, such as sunlight or mineral nutrients (e.g. nitrate or phosphate). The availability of these may vary, such that at any given time one is more limiting than the others. Liebig's Law states that growth only occurs at the rate permitted by the most limiting.
For instance, in the equation below, the growth of population is a function of the minimum of three Michaelis-Menten terms representing limitation by factors, and .
The use of the equation is limited to a situation where there are steady state conditions, and factor interactions are tightly controlled.
Read more about this topic: Liebig's Law Of The Minimum
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