Resource means all the materials that the environment provides to help organisms to satisfy what they need and want. In other words, resources are objects in the environment needed by living things for their growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Resources can come in two types upon their availability: renewable and non-renewable. Renewable resources are the resources that can be reused or replenished such as trees and water as they are used. Non-renewable resources, such as natural gas or coal, may vanish forever after use or it could take a long time for them to regenerate. When resources are consumed by one organism, then they will become unavailable to another organism. Therefore, all organisms compete with the same species or other species for the resources needed for survival.
All the organisms need basic resources of water, food and shelter to stay alive. Organisms sometimes need to compete with each other for resources in order to survive. But why do they compete? First, when the population grows, the population will have limited resources. When the environment provides limited resources, animals will compete with each other for getting the limited resources. Moreover, some of the animals come first and get most of the resources so they have better chances for survival. But the rest of the animals will have to compete with others to get the resources they need to survive. Furthermore, all the organisms need water, food, and shelter at least to live. Being without water, food, or shelter for very long is detrimental, which is harmful, to organisms. Therefore, they need to compete with each other for resources in order to live.
In the ecosystem, animals usually compete for food, shelter, water, air, space, or mate, while plants will mostly compete for space, sunlight, water, and air. Interference competition, exploitation competition, and apparent competition are the three different kinds of competition among organisms. Interference competition means organisms fighting directly with each other for scarce resources. For example, two male red deers during a rut are fighting for a mate. Or plants grow quickly for light to shade other plants with their leaves. Exploitation competition happens when organisms decrease or take away most of the resources that are available for the other organisms. For instance, the fish that a bear catches in the river will not be available for other bears at different points along the same river. Or some plant species are able to get water and nutrients from the soil faster than surrounding species. Apparent competition occurs when two organisms that do not directly compete for resources but they would affect each other by being a prey for the same predator. Consider a squirrel and mouse are both prey for a hawk. Or think about two plant species and a set of plant-eaters, and one plant species is an invasive species while the other is native to the ecosystem.
The global resources problem occurs when humans deplete the resources needed for animals and plants or cause disturbances to the environment due to their own benefits. Humans need global resources, such as air, water, sun, shelter, and trees, to maintain daily life, but humans also cause some resources problems to the environment, such as water pollution, global warming, or urban sprawl. Water pollution is caused by humans throwing away plastic water bottles or other trash in the ocean or factories releasing chemicals and pollutants of pesticide could be washed out to the water after the rain. To solve the water pollution problem, everyone can take some steps at home. For example, we can reduce the use of plastic bags or water bottles because chemicals in plastic items can go into groundwater and contaminate our drinking water. Factories should install wastewater treatment machines to remove most pollutants before they run into the groundwater. Urban Sprawl takes place when humans take away animals and plants’ shelter to build housing, roads, and commercial development, causing the destruction of natural resource land. To solve the urban sprawl problem, the government should preserve natural places, such as national parks, open spaces, or unused land so wildlife and animals have enough territory to live in.
In the balanced ecosystem, organisms live in comfortable areas because there are sufficient resources, air, water, food, and space, for living. Competition occurs when there are not enough resources. Competition among organisms is normal because competition helps keep the populations of various organisms in balance and are necessary to keep an ecosystem healthy. Sometimes, humans can cause disturbances to the ecosystem, making the ecosystem unbalanced. When a new species is introduced in an area, called Invasive Species, or when humans take away land from animal habitats, called Urban Sprawl, the ecosystem will shift from balance to imbalance, making some species become endangered or go extinct. To keep the ecosystem balanced, humans should protect nature by not taking away their resources from the existing animals and plants.
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