Example of Resource Partitioning
One of the best known cases of resource partitioning occurs among Caribbean anoles.
- As many as five different species of anoles may exist in the same forest, but each stays restricted to a particular space: some occupy tree canopies, some occupy trunks, some forage close to the ground.
- When the brown anole was introduced to Florida from Cuba, it excluded the green anole from the trunks of trees and areas near the ground: the green anole is now restricted to the canopies of trees:the resource (space, insects) has been partitioned among the two species
- (for now at least, this interaction may not be stable in the long run because the species eat each other’s young).