Plant tolerance to herbivory affect plant growth and also tolerance are water, light, carbon dioxide and soil nutrients. Water and light levels are generally assumed to be positively associated with tolerance (Strauss and Agrawal 1999). However, there are exceptions such as evidence of decreased tolerance in "Madia sativa" with increased water availability (Wise and Abrahamson 2007, Gonzales "et al." 2008). Many studies have found CO levels to decrease tolerance in plants (Lau and Tiffin 2009). Increased nutrient levels are also commonly found to be negatively associated with tolerance (Wise and Abrahamson 2007). There are currently three prominent models that predict how resource levels may
Liebig's law of the minimum Liebig's law of the minimum Liebig's law of the minimum, often simply called Liebig's law or the law of the minimum, is a principle developed in agricultural science by Carl Sprengel (1828) and later popularized by Justus von Liebig. It states that growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor). The law has also been applied to biological populations and ecosystem models for factors such as sunlight or mineral nutrients. This concept was originally applied to plant or crop growth, where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not