What Does Competitive Exclusion Mean?
The principle of competitive exclusion, also known as Gause’s law of competitive exclusion in ecology refers to the phenomenon that occurs when two species with similar resource requirements and similar abilities to harness those resources coexist with one another in an environment with the required resources. When these conditions are met, one species will always gain the upper hand through evolution and mutation. The populations of the two species will never remain fixed but will fluctuate constantly as the species compete with each other for the resources.