GAUSE'S LAW IN ECOLOGY

-


 Also known as the competitive exclusion principle, this refers to the proposition that the populations of two competing species cannot remain at stable levels over time.

When two species compete for control over a limited amount of resources, the dominant species will take advantage over its weak competitor. This will cause the weaker species to get excluded from its previous territory and its population to drop over time.

The law is named after Soviet biologist Georgii Gause although it was formulated first by American biologist Joseph Grinnell in his 1904 paper “The Origin and Distribution of the Chestnut-Backed Chickadee”.

In cases where no extinction occurs, this is because adaptation to slightly different niches takes place.

ecological communities are assembled by species evolutionary differentiation and progressive adaptation to different niches

Core ideas in community ecology, such as adaptation, niche differentiation and limiting similarity, all rely on this principle.

classical coexistence theory implicitly assumes that the strength of competition correlates positively with the degree of similarity between competing species.

When one species has even the slightest advantage over another, the one with the advantage will dominate in the long term. This leads either to the extinction of the weaker competitor or to an evolutionary or behavioral shift toward a different ecological niche. 

Gause’s law is valid only if the ecological factors are constant.

The principle has been paraphrased in the maxim “complete competitors cannot coexist”

The competition may result in

 1) Adaptive radiation of one or both species restricting them to separate niche and minimising competition.

2) Within the same or overlapping niches, equilibrium situation may be reached where one of the competitors declines in numbers to the point of extinction.

Gause law speaks of parallel evolution in terms of structural adaptations but not in terms of physiological, protective animal association, biotic and organic adaptations.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EXTINCTION OF MEN : A MYTH OR A REALITY ?

-
Image
The Y chromosome is a never-ending source of fascination particularly to men because it bears genes that determine maleness & make sperm. It’s also small & seriously weird; it carries few genes and is full of junk DNA that makes it horrendous to sequence.  The sex of human & other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. But the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene. However two branches of rodents have already lost their Y chromosome and have survived successfully. In humans, as in other mammals, females have two X chromosomes and males have a single X and a puny little chromosome called Y. The names have nothing to do with their shape; the X stood for “unknown”. The X contains about 900 genes that do all sorts of jobs unrelated to sex. But the Y contains few genes (about 55) and a lot of non-coding DNA – simple repetitive DNA that doesn’t seem t
Read more

THE BLOOD & IRON POLICY OF BISMARCK

-
Image
Before 1848, Germany was a confederation of 38 states ruled by princes or kings. Prussia was the largest and most powerful of these states. Prussia and Austria were the two most powerful states. In 1848 the states tried to create a unified Germany, but the attempt failed.  Many Germans believed that unification could only be achieved under Prussian leadership. But the Prussian king did not want to take a crown from the hands of revolutionaries and liberals. Unification would have to be on his terms.  He appointed Otto von Bismarck to be his chief minister in 1862. Bismarck set forth a policy called “blood and iron”. Bismarck intended to use war to achieve his aims of unifying Germany. Bismarck started three wars. The Prussians fought against the Danes, the Austrians, and the French. By 1871, Germany was united. The policy of “blood and iron” had worked. Bismarck’s “Blood and Iron” Speech (1862) is one of the more famous political speeches in the history of Germany and of the world. T
Read more

DENISOVA HOMININ : - AN EXTINCT HUMAN SPECIES

-
Image
Neanderthals were very early humans who lived in Europe & Western Asia from about 400,000 years ago until they became extinct about 40,000 years ago.  Denisovans are another population of early humans who lived in Asia & were distantly related to Neanderthals. Much less is known about the Denisovans because scientists have uncovered fewer fossils of these ancient people. Research has shown that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthal and Denisovan populations for a period, and that they had children together (interbred).  As a result, many people living today have a small amount of genetic material from these distant ancestors. Svante Paabo & his team in 2008 in Germany have sequenced nearly all the genome of the Denisovan people, an extinct human-like species contemporary with the Neanderthals.  The work by the Max Planck Society's Evolutionary Anthropology Institute in Leipzig has been first time obtained full genetic data of any of the archaic hominins.  The group
Read more