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Species Interactions and Competition MCQ - Practice Questions with Answers

Edited By admin | Updated on Sep 18, 2023 18:34 AM | #NEET

Quick Facts

How does competition impact the diversity of species in an ecosystem?

Competition promotes species diversity by increasing the number of niches available for different species

Competition decreases species diversity by reducing the number of available resources

Competition has no effect on species diversity

Competition increases or decreases species diversity depending on the intensity and duration of the competition

What is the main cause of resource distribution between species?

To reduce the intensity of competition

To increase the number of available resources

To reduce predation pressure

To increase the size of the population

Competition

Competition can be best defined as a process in which the fitness of one species (measured in terms of its ‘r’ the intrinsic rate of increase) is significantly lower in the presence of another species.
It is a type of interaction, where both the species suffer.
Competition occurs when closely related species compete for the same resources that are limited.
Some totally unrelated species could also compete for the same resources. For example, in some shallow South American lakes, visiting flamingoes and resident fishes compete for their common food, i.e., zooplanktons.
In interspecific competition, the feeding efficiency of one species might be reduced due to the interfering and inhibitory presence of the other species, although the resources are plenty.
For example, the Abingdon tortoise in Galapagos Islands became extinct within a decade after goats were introduced on the island, apparently due to the greater browsing efficiency of the goats.
Competitive release is a phenomenon, in which a species whose distribution is restricted to a small geographical area is found to expand its distributional range dramatically, when the competing species is experimentally removed.
Connell’s elegant field experiments showed that on the rocky sea coasts of Scotland, the larger and competitively superior barnacle Balanus dominates the intertidal area, and excludes the smaller barnacle Chthamalus from that zone.