Similar species can only coexist by diverging in some essential ecological way

Evidence

Ecological theory predicts that if two species are very similar competition for shared needs will eventually lead to the exclusion of one player. There will be a winner and a loser, not co-champions. How then do the two species share space on the log? How do they coexist if they are so similar? Again, theory predicts that coexistence is possible only when the two species diverge from one another in some essential way. I was intrigued by how these two gap colonists divided up the habitat. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 362

Categorization

• QUESTION: The coexistence puzzle is set up but not yet resolved here — worth chasing into the next chapter to see how Kimmerer’s experiments answer it and whether mosses belie or confirm the competitive-exclusion rule.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Sibling-like habitat specialization lets closely related species coexist in one genus — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 145; Tolerant and intolerant species partition by required gap size — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 232; Direct competition experiments reveal interspecies dominance obscured in the field — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 294 (+1 more)