Question

Gause's principle of competitive exclusion states that

• A. Larger organisms exclude smaller ones through competition.
• B. More abundant species will exclude the less abundant species through competition.
• C. Competition for the same resources excluding species having different food preferences.
• D. No two species can occupy the same niche indefinitely for the same limiting resource.

Answer 1

The correct option is D No two species can occupy the same niche indefinitely for the same limiting resource.

The competitive exclusion principle, sometimes referred to as Gause's Law of competitive exclusion or just Gause's Law, states that two species that compete for the exact same resources cannot stably coexist. One of the two competitors will always have an ever so slight advantage over the other that leads to extinction of the second competitor in the long run (in a hypothetical non-evolving system) or (in the real world) to an evolutionary shift of the inferior competitor towards a different ecological niche. As a consequence, competing related species often evolve distinguishing characteristics in areas where they both coexist.

So, the correct answer is 'D'.