Question

Competition for water, minerals, light and space is most severe between two:
A. Closely related species occupying the same niche.
B. Closely related species occupying different niches.
C. CUnrelated species occupying the same niche.
D. Species occupying different overlapping ecosystems.

Answer 1

Hint: The word "Niche" was created by Joseph Grinnel. A niche, according to him, is the distributional unit unique to each species. He emphasized that no two species occupying the same habitat can do so for an extended period of time.

Complete step by step solution:
An organism's functional place in an ecosystem is known as its niche.

The biotic elements, which include living things like animals, plants, and fungus, as well as abiotic components, influence the niche. Abiotic variables are the nonliving elements of the environment, including the availability of water, sunlight, and other resources like food and other nutrients.

The distribution and abundance of these elements, as well as how a creature interacts with and changes them, determine its niche within an ecosystem. For instance, a population increases when resources are plentiful, even when doing so increases the amount of resources available to predators.

The right answer is A, Closely related species occupying the same niche.

Two closely related species occupying the same niche compete more fiercely for nutrients, food, light, and space. It's because closely related species compete with one another for scarce resources because they need the same ones.

Note:The term "ecological niche" refers to both an organism's functional role within its community structure as well as the physical space that it occupies. This encompasses everything that affects how an organism affects a community, such as what an organism consumes, where it lives, what it does, its trophic position, etc. Niche outlines how a species contributes to the system's energy flow, how it acquires energy, and how it distributes it throughout an ecosystem.