Limiting factors – student activity

Abiotic factors
The sea sandwort is a low growing, fleshy, maritime plant found
on beaches, stabilizing the sand with the help of its underground
root system.

It has to be well adapted to this environment.

Explain its adaptations in the table below.

Adaptation of Sea sandwort Explanation of how this helps its survival on a beach

Low growing It's low growing therefore less wind blowing at it, if it wasn't it
could be blown away by wind. It could also be a way to hide
from predators
Salt tolerant It can tolerate sea water, at it's own habitat.

Fleshy leaves (covered in hairs too) Fleshy leaves reduce amount transpiration, for leaves to
maintain water. The hairs act as filters, to remove dirt.

Strong underground root system The strong underground system helps keeps the plants
position stable, it would fight with the waves pushing it. The
roots anchor in the sand in order to survive

Zones of stress and the limits of tolerance

1. Describe the term ‘limits of tolerance’
using the sea sandwort as an example.
Limits of tolerance is the limits of the
…………………………………………………………….
ranges of a particular environmental factor
within which an organism can survive. For
example of this is a sea sandwort. The
…………………………………………………………….
environmental factors are the quantity of
salt, amount of wind, shade from sun, type
…………………………………………………………….
of sand, and amount of nutrients. We
realize through the figure that the optimal
…………………………………………………………….
range is in between both zones of stress,
zones of stress are the ones where the
plants cant survive
…………………………………………………………….

2. Outline how the abundance of Sea sandwort is different in its “zone of stress” compared to its
“optimal range”.

The abundance of Sea sandwort is during it's optimal range, where the sea sandwort
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
is at it's best conditions and can survive easily. It consists of some salt spray, some
shelter from wind, some shade from grasses, moving sands, and few nutrients.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
However the zone of stress is anything exceeding this limit, or not reaching it.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

© David Faure, InThinking www.thinkib.net/biology 1