Link: sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903162635.htm
Date:September 3, 2014
Source:International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Anna Rychlik
This article is about new studies on biodiversity that ask "what relating to biodiversity exactly do we need to protect? The article writes that even though we are taught in biology that 2 species cannot occupy the same niche(what we learned in class), this is not true. It gives an example by talking about 2 fish in the Baltic sea that survive in the same niche.
It explains the possibility for this with a theory called "Relative Nonlinearity of Competition" that explains that 2 species can occupy the same niche because of how the 2 species react differently to density dependent, density independent, and other limiting factors found in nature.
If this theory would prove true, it would completely disprove and contradict everything we learned about biodiversity in our unit on ecology.
How do these two theories differ exactly? To be more specific, how is competitive exclusion disproved?
ReplyDeleteBasically, it is saying that competitive exclusion can be proved untrue in some cases, such as the 2 fish the article talks about. Competitive exclusion has not been disproved as a theory yet this article just shows different ways that could potentially end up disproving it.
DeleteDoes this theory only apply to certain species?
ReplyDeleteNo, it does not. Just some of the examples shown happen to be fish.
DeleteIs it possible for both theory's to be partially true because its clear that most species do not have the same niche.
ReplyDelete