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Patchiness, aggregation, and the coexistence of competitors for ephemeral resources
Author(s) -
KNEIDEL KENNETH A.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
ecological entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.865
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1365-2311
pISSN - 0307-6946
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2311.1985.tb00742.x
Subject(s) - biology , intraspecific competition , interspecific competition , competition (biology) , ecology , carrion , population , sociology , demography
. 1. A laboratory experiment was conducted to determine the outcome of competition between two species of carrion‐breeding Diptera for food at two levels of resource patchiness. 2. Adults of Fannia howardi Malloch (Muscidae) and Megaselia scalaris Loew (Phoridae) were released into a large population cage and were given access to three 2g sections of pork kidney in one treatment (low patchiness) and to twelve 0.5g sections in the other (high patchiness). 3. Increasing the patchiness of the resource resulted in reduced overlap in the distribution of the two species, and therefore less interspecific competition. However, this did not result in improved survival of the poorer competitor, F.howardi. Both species aggregated their eggs at high patchiness, and therefore suffered from increased levels of intraspecific competition. 4. The experiment shows that increasing patchiness in this way could lead to prolonged coexistence, as has been predicted in other studies.