BRAINCAKEInterspecific Competition
Interspecific competition is competition between individuals of different species for the same resources, such as food, light, water, nesting sites or space. It happens where the niches of two species overlap.
When two species compete, each has less of the shared resource than it would have alone. This reduces the population size of both species, because less food, space or light means lower survival and fewer offspring.
If one species is better adapted to the conditions, it obtains more of the resource. Its population grows while the other's declines. If the conditions stay the same, the less well adapted species may be removed from the habitat completely. This is competitive exclusion: two species cannot share exactly the same niche.
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More in Populations in Ecosystems
- Carrying Capacity
- Abiotic Factors and Population Size
- Biotic Factors and Population Size
- Intraspecific Competition
- Predator-Prey Relationships
- Estimating Population Size with Quadrats
- Random Sampling with Quadrats
- Systematic Sampling along Transects
All 20 lessons in Populations in Ecosystems · All AQA A-level Biology topics