Competition is one of the most interesting and important population interactions which have several effects:
It helps in resource partitioning.
It maintains the population size.
This allows the fittest to survive. Competition is a process in which the fitness of one species (measured in terms of its ‘r’ the intrinsic rate of increase) is significantly lower in the presence of another species.
In general, herbivores and plants appear to be more adversely affected by competition than carnivores.
Gause’s ‘Competitive Exclusion Principle’ states that two closely related species competing for the same resources cannot co-exist indefinitely and the competitively inferior one will be eliminated eventually. This may be true if resources are limiting, but not otherwise.