Question

In the late 1960’s, Robert Paine conducted landmark studies on diversity in the rocky intertidal zone, comparing the species diversity in control plots with diversity in experimental plots from which he removed the top predator, sea stars. After 5 years, 15 species of intertidal invertebrates lived in the control plots, while the experimental plots were dominated by only two species, one mussel and one barnacle. The process most likely responsible for the loss of species diversity in the experimental plots was ______

Answer 1

competitive exclusion.

Step-by-step explanation:

When species from the same biological community explore very similar ecological niches, competition among them for less available resources in the environment is instituted. It is common, for example, that plant species whose roots use the same portion of the soil compete for water, minerals and other resources.

Knowing this, Russian biologist Georgyi Frantsevich Gause formulated the Gause principle, or competitive exclusion principle, the theory that ecological niches are unique to each species, and for two or more of them to coexist in the same habitat, it is necessary that their niches have different and sufficient characteristics.

Gause proposed this theory based on several observations that led him to conclude that if two or more species explore exactly the same ecological niche, the competition established between them is so sharp that coexistence becomes impossible. This can cause a loss in species diversity, and that is exactly what Robert Paine observed in his studies.