Competitive Exclusion Principle

Two or more species with limited resources and similar resource-use patterns cannot coexist in a stable habitat because one species will be better suited and would outcompete or otherwise exterminate the others. G.F. Gause employed two closely related Paramecium species to conduct the first experimental testing of this theory in 1934. Both species populations exhibited typical S-shaped development curves when developed individually. However, when grown jointly, one species was wiped off.