BIO120H1 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Canis, Trophic Cascade, Competitive Exclusion Principle
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BIO120H1 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
14, 15 community ecology, resource partitioning and why it matters. Similar species compete for resources, and complete competitors (dependent on the same resources for the same uses) cannot coexist because the superior competitor drives the other to extinction. Resources can be shared by what and where. Different species consume different parts of a resource (different slices of a pie). Two different species can use the same resource but in different places (e. g. altitudes). Ecological theory shows that interspecific competition will be less likely to result in competitive exclusion if it is weaker than intraspecific competition. Species, limit their own population growth more than they limit that of potential competitors, and resource partitioning acts to promote the long-term coexistence of competing species. When species occur on their own on an island (i. e. , there is no interspecific competition), they have similarly sized beaks and presumably exploit similarly sized seeds.
