Abstract: Competition is a major organizing force in aquatic communities. Theory as well as laboratory and field studies show that competition is both common and important in inland waters. Aquatic organisms experience both intraspecific and interspecific competition and compete by both exploitative competition (sharing a scarce resource) and interference competition (aggressive interactions). Competitive interactions depend on factors such as ecosystem productivity, the timing of life history features among competing species, the ratio at which limiting resources are supplied and used, and temporal variability in resource supply. Competition among aquatic organisms depends on the size structure of populations of competing species. Also, competition occurs within complex food webs in which the presence of other species, especially predators, can affect competitive interactions. Ecologists continue to unravel the means by which competition affects aquatic communities; future studies can be expected to elucidate the importance of competition to environmental problems such as those associated with the spread of invasive species, the ecology of infectious disease, and the conservation of biodiversity.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 12
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