Competition: What is it?


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Competition: Also known as “rivalry”. This is one of the symbiotic relationships between a living thing that compete for limited resources. This is one of the relationships that organisms or species have with one another. This is where both of organisms or species are harmed. 

This can be a competition over resources. Examples include: Sunlight, Nutrients in the Soil, Water, and Shelter.

If any of these resources becomes a limited resource, it can allow organisms or species to compete for those limiting resources.

What causes competition? Competition is divided into two main parts...
  • Intraspecific: This type of relationship occurs within a species.
  • Interspecific: This type of relationship occurs waged between species. This type of competition isn't as strong as intraspecific competition.
Why does Competition happen? Competition happens when there is a tendency for an organisms or species to overproduce. This results in more resources being used in an area which eventually will lead to the resource becoming a “limited resource”.
As we have learned previously in high school biology classes, competition is the natural driver of the natural selection process.

Affects on Evolution: Interactions between organisms or species cause changes to the life history of two species. Limiting resources, and the reduction of the niche overlap leads to changes to the environment and initially will lead to the evolution of the environment.
There are many different examples of the symbiotic relationship known as competition, be sure to visit the next blog post which will discuss many different examples that correlate with the competitive symbiotic relationship.

Image result for competition in plants in biology
Picture from: https://www.cell.com/trends/plant-science/fulltext/S1360-1385(09)00291-X

The picture above is a bunch of different plants in the same area competing for the same resources. Each of these plants need resources to survive and will begin to compete for these limiting resources.

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