1) In the given info, there were two groups, an experimental and control group of flowers and sagebrush in a desert landscape that were identical except that the experimental group had a fence enclosed around it. Also, there was a predation relationship between the wildflowers and the kangaroo rats because the kangaroo rats eat wildflowers. Assuming that the fence was limiting the space of the experimental plot, competitive exclusion caused the extinction of the 4 other wild flowers. To begin, there was some interspecific competition, which happens when individuals of different species compete for a resource that limits their survival, between the 5 flower species in the experimental plot because they had their space limited to the fence that they were enclosed in. this competition was a density dependent factor in that the death rate rose when population density in the plot rose. Also, some of the specie’s ecological niches (like what nutrients they needed and how many branches would form) would have had to been the same or else they could coexist together. Then, one of the species of wildflower might have had a reproductive advantage like thorns to repel the kangaroo rats which would have allowed them to prosper and the other species to die out. This is the principle of competitive exclusion. On a tangent, the kangaroo rats would have learned to stay away from the wildflower with thorns by classical conditioning because they paired the idea of getting stung with eating that particular wildflower species and eventually stopped. The control plot, on the other hand, did not have a fence, so they had all the room to grow and didn’t not have to compete for the resources. The reason they didn’t grow even more from this is because they have reached their climax community. The population in the control plot was stable
