Nitrophily is a botanical term that indicates a preference of certain plant species for a

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

rich in

nitrate Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the chemical formula . salt (chemistry), Salts containing this ion are called nitrates. Nitrates are common components of fertilizers and explosives. Almost all inorganic nitrates are solubility, soluble in wa ...

. This term was first introduced by George Fuller during the 1930s. The word is a contraction of the Greek words νἰτρον (nitron) meaning "saltpetre" and φίλος (philos) meaning "friendly". Nitrophily is traditionally expressed as a score between 1 (not nitrophilous at all) and 10 (extremely nitrophilous) according to the Ellenberg N Index. Alternatively, the response of leaf area to nitrogen supply is a relatively simple method to produce a proxy for the nitrophily. Mostly the nitrophily is consistent with the nitrate availability, where the lowest values occur with plants that grow in peat bogs (such as ''

Drosera ''Drosera'', which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genus, genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. 2 volumes. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucil ...

''- and ''

Erica Erica or ERICA may refer to: * Erica (given name) * Erica (plant), ''Erica'' (plant), a flowering plant genus * Erica (chatbot), a service of Bank of America * Erica (video game), ''Erica'' (video game), a 2019 FMV video game * Erica (spider), ' ...

''-species), while the highest values occur with plants that grow on fresh organic waste such as dung piles, waste heaps and strandlines (such as ''

Chenopodium ''Chenopodium'' is a genus of numerous species of perennial or annual herbaceous flowering plants known as the goosefoot, which occur almost anywhere in the world. It is placed in the family Amaranthaceae in the APG II system; older classifica ...

''-, and ''

Urtica ''Urtica'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Urticaceae. Many species have stinging hairs and may be called nettles or stinging nettles (the latter name applying particularly to ''Urtica dioica, U. dioica''). The generic name ''Urtica' ...

''-species).

References

Plant ecology {{botany-stub