Definition
Gause’s law is a principle in the field of population dynamics first outlined by Russian/Soviet biologist G.F. Gause, which states that two species that are competing for the same limited resources cannot coexist at constant population values, that no two species with similar ecological niches can coexist in a state of stable equilibrium, or that realized ecological niches do not intersect. It is otherwise called the competitive exclusion principle (CEP). Three different basic outcomes have been specified: competitive exclusion, local extinction, and niche differentiation.
Introduction
Population dynamics is a field that studies the change in the prevalence of different species over time in relation to four key life-path processes: birth, death, immigration, and emigration. Prior to Gause, after the initial nineteenth-century...
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Barnett, V. (2022). Gause’s Law. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_2100
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