Experimental Basis
Based on field observations, Joseph Grinnell formulated the principle of competitive exclusion in 1904: "Two species of approximately the same food habits are not likely to remain long evenly balanced in numbers in the same region. One will crowd out the other". Russian ecologist Georgy Gause formulated the law of competitive exclusion based on laboratory competition experiments using two species of Paramecium, P. aurelia and P. caudatum.The conditions were to add fresh water everyday and input a constant flow of food. Although P. caudatum initially dominated, P. aurelia recovered and subsequently drove P. caudatum extinct via exploitative resource competition. However, Gause was able to let the P. caudatum survive by differing the environmental parameters (food, water). Thusly, the Gause law is valid only if the ecological factors are constant. Gause also studied competition between two species of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces kefir, and found that Schizosaccharomyces kefir consistently outcompeted Saccharomyces cerevisiae by producing a higher concentration of ethyl alcohol.
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