Populations In Ecosystems: - Competition

- Competition - 

Intraspecific competition  

→ Occurs when individuals of the SAME species compete with one another for resources such as food, water, breeding sites. It is the availability of the resources that determines the size of the population.

Example of this would be the squirrels in the picture → 

Interspecific competition  

→ Occurs when individuals of DIFFERENT species compete for resources such as food, light, water. When a population of the two species are in competition one will normally have a competitive advantage over the other.

As a result this species would increase in size gradually whereas the other would begin to diminish. This is if the conditions remain the same ⇒ competitive exclusion principle.

An example of this would be shown in this picture →

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To remember the difference between interspecific and intraspecific competition remember that:

INTRASPECIFIC = has RA in the word and SAME has an A within the word.

INTERSPECIFC = has ER in the word and DIFFERENT has an ER within the word.

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This graph shows the effects of interspecific competition on population size. 

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