THE FOUNDER PRINCIPLE AND COMPETITIVE ABILITY OF TRIBOLIUM

Abstract
A test of the importance of the founder principle on indeterminacy of the results of competition between 2 spp. of flour beetles, T. castaneum and T. confusum, was conducted by initiating 2 sets of cultures with 10 and 2 pairs of adults of each sp., respectively. In addition to a greater degree of indeterminacy in experiments where 2 paris of adults were used, variability of per cent T. castaneum present in 10 replicate cultures of each experiment was greater for the 2-pair competition. The use of a small initial number of adults can lead to indeterminacy of outcome of competition through sampling chance.