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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Cancer. 2013 Nov 11;13(12):883–892. doi: 10.1038/nrc3606

Figure 3. Resource limitation and escape during progression.

Figure 3

The second law of ecology states that an exponentially growing population will eventually reach some limit to its growth. In neoplastic progression, there appear to be a series of limitations to the growth of neoplastic cell populations. During progression, the neoplastic cell population evolves mechanisms for escaping each limitation, temporarily releasing the neoplastic cell population with a burst of proliferation such that mutant cells with fast life history strategies have a competitive advantage (red background). However, when those populations reach a new resource limitation, selection shifts from fast to slow life history strategies (blue background), such that cells that can best compete, sequester resources, and avoid death, have an advantage.