![]() ![]() ![]() Plants, herbivores, and carnivores showed similar frequencies of competition in all habitats compared. Marine organisms showed consistently higher frequencies of competition than terrestrial ones as did large-sized organisms as compared to smaller ones. The prevalence of competition in these studies varied. Since these estimates come from field experiments open to other influences such as predators, grazers, weather, disturbances, etc., they should provide a fair approximation of the relative prevalence of interspecific and intraspecific competition in natural ecological communities. Since this bias should apply also to studies of all taxa, habitats, or other interactions it should not greatly affect estimates of the relative prevalence of competition. Some evidence from this literature survey suggests that negative results may be underrepresented, so that the absolute values of these figures may be too high. When competition was demonstrated, intraspecific competition was as strong or stronger than interspecific in three-quarters of the experiments. In the few studies in which the two were separated, interspecific competition was the stronger form in about onesixth of all experiments done. In most of these experiments interspecific competition was not distinguished from intraspecific competition. ![]() In a strictly defined sample of competition studies using controlled field experiments, covering 215 species and 527 experiments, competition was found in most of the studies, in somewhat more than half of the species, and in about two-fifths of the experiments. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |