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Lynn Lauerman
288 words
Exploitive Competition
Competition describes an ecological interaction between individuals or species
in response to the need for a common resource such as space or food.
Because competition can occur via different mechanisms, ecologists have
subdivided the concept of competition to describe different ways in which
organisms interact in pursuit of shared resources.
Historically, ecologists have divided competitive interactions into two
forms: exploitive and interference.
Exploitive (also called exploitative) competition describes an interaction in
which one individual or species is more efficient at exploiting a resource than
another individual or species, and therefore affects the fitness of the other
competitor by depriving it of that resource.
Unlike interference competition, exploitive competition is a passive
phenomenon; it occurs indirectly via depletion of a shared resource rather than
by direct interaction (e.g., physical or chemical harm).
An example of exploitive competition in the marine environment can be
found in coral reef communities. Some
types of upright branching corals grow more rapidly than do encrusting or
massive corals. In some cases, species in the former group grow over species
in the latter group thereby depriving the slow growers of light and water
movement (both resources are required for coral survival).
Many ecologists who study competition have found that observed interactions
among organisms do not fit neatly into the exploitive vs. interference
classification scheme. Therefore,
while the term "exploitive competition" remains widely used in the
ecological literature, it has been supplemented with numerous other subdivisions
to describe specific mechanisms of competition.
Further Reading
Nybakken, James W. Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach. New York:
Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 1997.
Park, Thomas (1962). "Beetles,
Competition, and Populations." Science
138 (3548): 1369-1375.
Related Topics
Coral, Interference Competition
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