A Note on the Papers of Elton and Williams on the Generic Relations of Species in Small Ecological Communities

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Abstract
The original papers on which Elton (1946) and Williams (1947) based their communities have been examined with regard to Gause''s (1934) hypothesis that two spp. with similar ecology cannot live together in the same place, and from the point of view of their suitability for the type of analysis to which they have been subjected. It is shown that many of the communities are unsuitable because (a) the "habitat" was very heterogeneous, (b) the community was sampled by a variety of sampling devices, and (c) the community was sampled over a long period of time. It is suggested that the present confusion is based on differences in the meaning of the word "habitat," that with Gause it is synonymous with "microhabitat," while with Williams it has a much broader meaning. From this standpoint Elton''s conclusions appear to be correct, though based on unsuitable data, and Williams, far from contradicting Gause and Elton, has provided the corollary that related spp. are more likely to be found in similar, though not identical, habitats than are unrelated ones.