9th Grade Biology SOL Practice Test

Competition is the interaction where organisms vie for limited resources like food and living space. This overlap in needs can happen between members of the same species or between different species, shaping who gets access to resources and driving adaptations such as resource partitioning or changes in behavior. For example, two squirrels trying to gather acorns or plants growing in the same area competing for sunlight illustrate competition in action. Predation involves one organism hunting and consuming another, which is about feeding relationships rather than shared resource use. Succession is the gradual change in the composition of a community over time after a disturbance. A food web maps who eats whom in an ecosystem, showing energy transfer, but it’s not the specific interaction where organisms compete for the same limited resources.