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Apply today for the HHMI BioInteractive Ambassador Academy! The Academy is a multi-year professional development experience designed to support evidence-based teaching practices. We’re looking for educators with diverse backgrounds and teaching contexts who are committed to centering equity in their classrooms.How Species Coexist
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Description
In this talk, ecologist Robert Pringle discusses how large herbivores can coexist by partitioning ecological niches by time, space, and diet.
There are over 30 species of herbivores in the African savanna, yet these species coexist in the same habitat without one species outcompeting all the others. Pringle describes a method called metabarcoding, which uses plant DNA recovered from animal dung to identify exactly which plant species each animal eats. This technique has allowed scientists to obtain a more accurate picture of how herbivores partition ecological niches by diet.
This talk is from a 2015 Holiday Lecture Series, Patterns and Processes in Ecology.
Key Terms
biodiversity, browser, competition, competitive exclusion, DNA sequencing, fecal sample, Gorongosa National Park, grazer, niche partitioning
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