Re: Scientific Dissent

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:54:51 -0800 (PST), Shuurai
<Shuurai11@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


I seem to think that 1970s thought was that it was absurd to think
that 6.5 billion people could live on this planet.

simply fact is they were right. =A06.5 billion people can't live on this
planet sustainably. =A0We are using up our grandchildren's resources.

We have barely scratched the surface of the available resources on
this planet. The problem is that right now we're simply way too
dependant on specific resources.

yep.

Liebig's Law

Many different environmental factors have the potential to control the
growth of a population. These factors include the abundance of prey or
nutrients that the population consumes and also the activities of
predators. A given population will usually interact with a multitude
of different prey and predator species, and ecologists have described
these many interactions by drawing food webs. Yet, although a given
population may interact with many different species in a food web, and
also interact with many different abiotic factors outside the food
web, not all of these interactions are of equal importance in
controlling that population's growth. Experience shows that "only one
or two other species dominate the feedback structure of a population
at any one time and place (Berryman 1993)." The identity of these
dominating species may change with time and location, but the number
of species that limits a given population (i.e. actively controls its
dynamics) is usually only one or two.

Liebig's Law, in its modern form, expresses this idea. It says that
of all the biotic or abiotic factors that control a given population,
one has to be limiting (i.e. active, controlling the dynamics)
(Berryman 1993, 2003). Time delays produced by this limiting factor
are usually one or two generations long (Berryman 1999).

Liebig's Law stresses the importance of limiting factors in ecology.
"A factor is defined as limiting if a change in the factor produces a
change in average or equilibrium density (Krebs 2001a)." One
sometimes hears the remark that "everything is connected to everything
else in nature," and that therefore a change in the abundance of one
organism will affect the abundances of all others. While it is true
that everything in nature is connected to everything else by
interactions, the conclusion just stated is exaggerated and misleading
(Berryman 1993). Research shows that only some of the many
interactions are strong and important, and that relatively few of
these limit the growth of the focal population at any given time and
place (Berryman 1993, 2003).

Etymology: Named in honor of Baron Justus von Leibig (1803-1873) who
formulated an early version of this law (Liebig 1840).

Synomyms: Liebig's Law of the Minimum; Law of the Minimum; Law of
Feedback Dominance (Berryman 1993), Fifth Principle (Berryman 2003).
.

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