Lynn Rushkin
Published: September 3, 2014
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903162635.htm
The article "Biodiversity in the balance, how is it maintained?" describes how scientists are trying to find explanations and theories of how biodiversity is sustained so they can help protect it. Although most students learn that no two organisms that share the same niche can co-exist, this rule is not always true in the real world. The article gave the example of two organism, the herring and the sprat, that live in the Baltic Sea. Both of them occupy similar niches, but they are able to co-exist. A theory called Relative Nonlinearity of Competition (RNC) states that two organisms with similar niches can live alongside each other if they react differently to limiting factors and resources avaliable which can help the species benefit from each other. This theory was proved unstable because when it is tested, most of the time one species would out compete the other for resources. Scientists believe that further research is needed to find a more accurate explaination of factors that contribute to biodiversity.
This article relates to our studies in ecology and the relationship between species in an ecosystem. For example, biodiversity, which is the main topic of the article, was a concept that we learned in chapter 36. Biodiversity is important to nature because species rely on other species for food and shelter. So, when a species goes extinct or is outcompeted it affects the whole ecosystem. This is why the scientists in the article are working hard to preserve biodiversity. The article also mentions how niches, which is the role of a species in its ecosystem, contribute to competitive exclusion which is when one species out competes another species for resources (from chapter 35). In addition, the article talks about Relative Nonlinearity of Competition which was a theory that was found to be unstable when tested. This relates to our study on the scientific method and proving/disproving theories (from chapter 2).
Since the theory was proved unstable, if you had to make a hypothesis explaining how two animals of similar niches could be able to coexist, what would your hypothesis be? Also, if you wanted to conduct an experiment to prove if your hypothesis was correct, how would you set up the experiment?
ReplyDeleteI am wondering why do most students learn that two organisms cannot co-exist in the same niche, if the Relative Nonlinearity of Competition states that two organisms are able to co-exist in the same niche and benefit from others?
ReplyDeleteThis is because it isn't very common that two species with similar niches can co-exist. Also, it isn't very well understood about how two species can co-exist if they have similar niches because the Relative Nonlinearity of Competition theory was proved unstable.
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