temporal and spatial competition in birds,i want to know about it ,what it is ,please give explanatory answer.

Question

this phenomenon related to niche partitioning ,or in other words we say habitat division.

Answer 1

The general thinking is that competition for some resource leads to partitioning that resource along some axis of use in order for the competitors to coexist. Otherwise, one displaces the other. So, let's say that two kinds of birds eat the same foods in the same way. Now their ranges overlap for some reason - one has spread and encountered the other for the first time, and there are no limits on either apart from their food competition. So, what do they do - there's not enough food for both of them to get all they want, so they have to develop some way to 'share' it. Perhaps one will begin taking the food in the morning while the other takes it in the evening - that would be temporal partitioning; separating their foraging along the 'time' axis. Or perhaps one will hunt in the treetops while the other hunts lower on the trunk - spatial partitioning. This works in all sorts of ways at all sorts of scales, and leads to everything from behavioral changes to actual morphological changes (think Darwin's Finches). Note, by the way, that partitioning can be done on almost any axis imaginable - food type, food size, time of activity, habitat, 'microhabitat', etc., etc. Also, that competitors can be almost any group - there are numerous cases of sexual dimorphism in birds that can be traced to niche partitioning. Also that competition for food is merely one of the many types of competition - any limiting factor gives rise to competition; it can be nesting sites, water sources, hiding places, whatever things need that other things also need.