Competition In Ecology

• Introduction

In ecology, it is known that resources such as food, water and habitat are available in different amounts in the environment. Some of them are easy to get and some are not. The strife of getting them is called competition. When talking about competition, “niche” is one of the basic terms a learner should be familiar with. Niche is defined as the effective relationship of specie toward its physical and biological surroundings. Typically, when characterizing a niche three parameter sets should be taken in consider: 1) Range of physical factors for survival and reproduction (temperature, soil, sunlight). 2) Biological factors (predators, prey, competitors). 3) Behavior (movement, social organization).

In low-density mixed culture the average weight was 0.49 gr (±6.28 gr), while it was 0.49 gr (±4,63 gr) in low-density single culture.

For radish plants, the average weights of the plants that were in mixed culture was almost 0.18 gr (± 0.02 gr) in high density and 0.29 gr (± 0.04 gr) in low density (Fig. 4). In the single culture, weights were 0.18 gr (± 0.007 gr) in high density and 0.23 gr (± 0.01 gr) in low density.
Furthermore, the percentages of the sprouting success for both types of plants were drawn as follows:

The sprouting success of watermelon in a high-density mixed culture was very low with a percentage of 4% (± 1.87) as shown in (Fig. 5), while it was 90% (± 6.12) in the low-density single culture, which is the highest. For radish, the highest percentage of sprouting success was for those plants that were planted in a low-density single culture, it was 100% successful as figure 6 represents. In contrast, the lowest percentage of sprouting success was 16% (± 4) for the plants that were planted in a high-density mixed culture (Fig.