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| An Example of Competition
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Click on the Picture for Larger Image |
One example of competition
in caves occurs in cave beetles from the family
Carabidae. These beetles feed on cave and camel cricket eggs that have been
buried in sandy cave floors. These cricket eggs are very patchy (they occur
randomly and may be widely spaced). Beetles spend a great deal of energy
digging holes in search of eggs, but if they find one egg it will feed them
for weeks. Every beetle finds less cricket eggs when there are more beetles
to find cricket eggs and therefore they are hungry and have less energy
to have young beetles (this is know as exploitation
competition ). So beetles must compete with each other for cricket eggs
(think of it as a continuous Easter egg hunt). They do a lot of things in
order to beat other beetles to cricket eggs. They get in the way of other
beetles when they gather eggs, will fight a beetle that's digging up an
egg, or will run after a beetle that has succeeded in getting an egg (this
is known as interference
competition ).
Click on the Picture for Image Information
The picture above shows two crickets fighting for food. Which is another example of competion.
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