for environment majors or for people who know a lot about environment?

Question

competition for a limited quantity of resources occurs in all ecosystems. this competition can be interspecific or intraspecific. explain some of the ways an organism might deal with these different types of competition

Answer 1

Competition exists for literally anything that is limited.

Food, water, area, nests are all objects of competition either interspecific or intraspecific. Intraspecific is usually more intense because the animals are searching for exactly the same things.

Intraspecific competition also applies to finding a mate and interspecific is also the state of "predator-prey".

Answer 2

Ways of dealing with competition:

Interspecific - between members of different species:
1. Feed on the same prey at different times of the day (hawks eat mice in the day, owls eat mice at night)
2. Nest in different parts of the tree or other parts of the habitat (near the trunk, out on the branches, down low, up high)
3. Search for food in different parts of the habitat (on the tree trunks, down in the leaf litter)
4. Utilize different levels of light (plants grow in direct sun vs plants growing in shade)

Intraspecific competition - between members of the same species:
1. Establishing territories to minimize competition for food, shelter, mates
2. Social orders with dominant individuals to establish who gets food first, is allowed to mate, and so on ... all with a minimum amount of conflict