Communities: Plants in a community or habitat often compete with each other for light and space, and for water and mineral ions from the soil. Animals often compete with each other for food, mates and territory.

Q: How do I revise Communities: Plants in a community or habitat often compete with each other for light and space, and for water and mineral ions from the soil. Animals often compete with each other for food, mates and territory. for GCSE?

Read the notes on Communities: Plants in a community or habitat often compete with each other for light and space, and for water and mineral ions from the soil. Animals often compete with each other for food, mates and territory., then test yourself without looking. Answering questions and checking what you missed builds recall faster than re-reading.

Q: Is this Communities: Plants in a community or habitat often compete with each other for light and space, and for water and mineral ions from the soil. Animals often compete with each other for food, mates and territory. guide aligned to the AQA specification?

Yes. This guide is linked to the Communities: Plants in a community or habitat often compete with each other for light and space, and for water and mineral ions from the soil. Animals often compete with each other for food, mates and territory. topic in the AQA GCSE specification.

Competition occurs when organisms need the same resource that is in limited supply.

Study notes

From the checked teaching notes for this specification point.

The idea

Competition occurs when organisms need the same resource that is in limited supply. Plants compete for light, space, water and mineral ions. A tall oak shades smaller plants, while shallow-rooted grasses and deep-rooted shrubs draw water and ions from different soil depths. Animals compete for food, mates and territory. Red squirrels and grey squirrels compete for food and nesting sites; male deer compete for mates and territory. The better-adapted competitor survives and reproduces, so its alleles become more common. Competition can be intraspecific, between members of the same species, or interspecific, between different species. It is a major driver of natural selection and affects population sizes within a community.

What earns the marks

Plants compete for light, space, water and mineral ions from the soil.
Animals compete for food, mates and territory.
Competition happens when resources are limited, so not all organisms obtain enough to survive and reproduce.
Intraspecific competition occurs between members of the same species; interspecific competition occurs between different species.
Successful competitors survive and reproduce, passing on advantageous alleles, which links competition to natural selection.

Common mistakes and how to put them right

Listing only food for animals.
Put it right by including mates and territory as well.
Saying plants compete for food.
Put it right by stating that plants compete for light, space, water and mineral ions, because they make their own food.
Treating competition as always between different species.
Put it right by distinguishing intraspecific from interspecific competition.

Exam tips

Match each resource to the correct group, for example light and space for plants, mates and territory for animals.
Use comparative language such as 'more likely to survive' or 'less likely to reproduce' when explaining the outcome.
Give a named example from a habitat you have studied to make your answer concrete.

Try the lesson

The start of the Communities: Plants in a community or habitat often compete with each other for light and space, and for water and mineral ions from the soil. Animals often compete with each other for food, mates and territory. lesson, made from checked teaching notes for this specification point.

Have a go first

In a garden, several rose bushes grow close together. For which two resources do these plants mainly compete?

Tip: press 1 to 4 to choose

See it

A top-down flowchart. The top node reads 'Competition: resources in limited supply' and branches into two nodes: 'Plants compete for' and 'Animals compete for'. The plants branch splits into four nodes: 'Light', 'Space', 'Water' and 'Mineral ions from the soil'. The animals branch splits into three nodes: 'Food', 'Mates' and 'Territory'. — It shows the resources that plants and animals compete for when resources are limited.

Label the diagram

Some boxes have lost their names. Pick the right name for each number.

The diagram again, with 3 boxes numbered instead of named. A top-down flowchart. The top node reads 'Competition: resources in limited supply' and branches into two nodes: 'Plants compete for' and 'Animals compete for'. The plants branch splits into four nodes: 'Light', 'Space', 'Water' and 'Mineral ions from the soil'. The animals branch splits into three nodes: 'Food', 'Mates' and 'Territory'.

1Box 1
2Box 2
3Box 3

0 of 3 labelled

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