Editing Competitive exclusion principle (section)

{{short description|Ecology proposition}}
{{redirect-distinguish|Gause's law|Gauss's law}}
[[File:Competitive-20Exclusion-20Principle.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|1: A smaller (yellow) species of bird forages across the whole tree.<br>2: A larger (red) species competes for resources.<br>3: Red dominates in the middle for the more abundant resources. Yellow adapts to a new niche restricted to the top and bottom and avoiding [[competition]].]]
In [[ecology]], the '''competitive exclusion principle''',<ref name="hardin60">{{Cite journal |last=Garrett Hardin |year=1960 |title=The competitive exclusion principle |url=http://www.esf.edu/efb/schulz/seminars/hardin.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Science |volume=131 |issue=3409 |pages=1292–1297 |bibcode=1960Sci...131.1292H |doi=10.1126/science.131.3409.1292 |pmid=14399717 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117235048/http://www.esf.edu/efb/schulz/seminars/hardin.pdf |archive-date=2017-11-17 |access-date=2016-11-24}}</ref> sometimes referred to as '''Gause's law''',<ref name="Pocheville2015">{{Cite book |last=Pocheville |first=Arnaud |title=Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences |publisher=Springer |year=2015 |isbn=978-94-017-9014-7 |editor-last=Heams |editor-first=Thomas |location=Dordrecht |publication-date=2015 |pages=547–586 |chapter=The Ecological Niche: History and Recent Controversies |editor-last2=Huneman |editor-first2=Philippe |editor-last3=Lecointre |editor-first3=Guillaume |editor-last4=Silberstein |editor-first4=Marc |display-editors=3 |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/6188833}}</ref> is a proposition that two [[species]] which [[Competition (biology)|compete]] for the same limited [[Resource (biology)|resource]] cannot coexist at constant population values. When one species has even the slightest advantage over another, the one with the advantage will dominate in the long term. This leads either to the extinction of the weaker competitor or to an [[evolution]]ary or behavioral shift toward a different [[ecological niche]]. The principle has been paraphrased in the maxim "complete competitors cannot coexist".<ref name="hardin60" />