Talk:Liebig's law of the minimum

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"Liebig's law of minimum" should redirect here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.102.250.225 (talk • contribs)

The equation as it is now,
 * $$ \frac{dO}{dt} = min \left( \frac{I}{k_{I} + I}, \frac{N}{k_{N} + N}, \frac{P}{k_{P} + P} \right) $$

is incorrect. To see this, check that the left hand side has the dimension of population size per time, while the right hand side is dimensionless. Even if this equation has been non-dimensionalized, it doesn't make sense for several reasons: population growth doesn't depend on population size, populations always increase in size, even for the minutest food densities. I'll change it to
 * $$ \frac{dO}{dt} = O\left(min \left( \frac{\mu_I I}{k_{I} + I}, \frac{\mu_N N}{k_{N} + N}, \frac{\mu_P P}{k_{P} + P} \right) -m\right) $$ —Preceding unsigned comment added by OpenScience (talk • contribs) 10:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The population variable O is somewhat confusing with BigO notation. Could it be changed to something else?

In the last section: "The only perfect limiting factor is that which enables life to exist, energy." A very poetic statement, but who said this? Also, I imagine that there is a rigorous definition of perfect limiting factor that could go here? 165.214.14.22 (talk) 21:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

There isn't, the statement is a bit nonsensical and should be removed. 71.174.3.165 (talk) 16:57, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I've removed that section as nonsense. Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  08:07, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Nutrients are not all equal
It cannot be assumed that all nutrients have an equal value which this formula presumes. If the value between several nutrients varies in relative importance, the two end nodes are not necessarily equal or tantamount to one another and cannot be presumed to be... The numerical equivalence of the statement in the Applications Section is that all nutrients are of the same value between one another in context and if that is the real rule of science, then shouldn't it imply other rules of contingency as well? Stevenmitchell (talk) 09:58, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Many of the final sections appear opinion or copied from somebodies thesis — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.176.66.53 (talk) 12:14, 20 June 2012 (UTC)