Biology / Unit 14 Bio 3605 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Competitive Exclusion and the Ecological Niche
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The idea
The competitive exclusion principle holds that two species occupying the identical ecological niche, the full resource-and-condition set a species uses, cannot stably coexist.
In practice
Two species needing the same limited food source and nesting site cannot both persist there long-term.
Where people slip
Overlapping-habitat species routinely coexist by dividing resources along another axis — full niche overlap, not habitat overlap, triggers exclusion.
Your place on the trail
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