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a) Competition
As long as commonly used resources are abundant, different species can share them. However, when two or more species in the same ecosystem attempt to use the same scarce resources, they are said to be engaging in inter-specific competition. The scarce resources may be food, water, CO2, sunlight, soil nutrients, shelter, or anything needed for survival.
The more similar the ecological niches of two species, the more they will compete for the same food, shelter, space, and other critical resources.
The principle of competitive exclusion states that no two species in the same ecosystem can occupy exactly the same ecological niche indefinitely. Populations of same species can avoid or reduce competition by moving to other areas, switching to less accessible food source, feeding at different times of the day or places e.g. hawks at day and owls at night.
b) Mutualism
Phenomenon where ecological niches of some species involve interactions in which both species benefit e.g. pollinating insects and the plants they pollinate, legume plants and rhizobium bacteria in the nitrogen cycle etc.
c) Commensalism
When one species benefits from the association while the other is apparently neither helped nor harmed. e.g. epiphytes on tree trunks and branches
The principle of limiting factors states that too much or too little of any single abiotic factor can limit or prevent growth of the populations of a particular plant and animal species in an ecosystem even if all other factors are at or near the optimum range of tolerance for the species.
marto answered the question on March 20, 2019 at 07:38
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