READ: Limiting Factors

Other limiting factors include light, water, nutrients or minerals, oxygen, the ability of an ecosystem to recycle nutrients and/or waste, disease and/or parasites, temperature, space, and predation. Can you think of some other factors that limit populations?

In desert states, such as Utah, water is crucial for crop growth and local animal populations, and in this way is a limiting factor for population growth of certain plant and animal species. Watershed areas are set up to catch spring runoff in reservoirs for use throughout the Intermountain West.

The opposite situation can also be true: too much water can be a limiting factor in certain ecosystems. Whereas most plants like rain, an individual cactus-like Agave Americana plant actually likes to grow when it is dry. Rainfall limits reproduction of this plant which, in turn, limits growth rate. Can you think of some other factors like this?

Human activities can also limit the growth of populations. Such activities include use of pesticides, such as DDT, use of herbicides, and habitat destruction.