BIO 1406 Lecture Notes - Lecture 34: Competitive Exclusion Principle, Ecological Niche, Character Displacement
27 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
A biological _community_ is an assemblage of populations of various species living close enough for potential interaction. For example, the carrier crab carries a sea urchin on its back for protection against predators. Concept 54. 1: community interactions are classified by whether they help, harm, or have no effect on the species involved. Ecologists call relationships between species in a community _interspecific_ interactions. Examples are competition, predation, herbivory, symbiosis (parasitism, mutualism, and commensalism), and facilitation. Interspecific interactions can affect the survival and reproduction of each species, and the effects can be summarized as positive (+), negative ( ), or no effect (0) __interspecific_ competition ( / interaction) occurs when species compete for a resource in short supply. Strong competition can lead to _competative_exclusion, local elimination of a competing species. The competitive exclusion principle states that two species competing for the same limiting resources cannot coexist in the same place.
