Course:VANT149/2025/Capstone/Science/Team19

Abstract

This project explores whether two species competing for limited resources can stably coexist or if one will ultimately outcompete the other. We use the Lotka-Volterra competition model to simulate long-term population dynamics under varying ecological conditions. Our simulation experiment involves bacteria (E. coli and B. subtilis) and tests them across varying resource levels, initial population sizes, and competition strengths. The simulations are run in Excel over 1000 generations to observe patterns of coexistence or exclusion. This project helps us better understand how species interactions and resource constraints influence biodiversity and ecological stability.

Keywords: Species Competition, Resource Limitation, Lotka-Volterra Model, Bacterial Simulation, Coexistence, Competitive Exclusion, Ecological Stability

Biographies

Person 1

Yihui Cao is a first-year student in Vantage Science Program at UBC. Her research explores whether two competing populations can coexist under limited resources or if one will outcompete the other. She is personally interested in this topic because she and her teammates have studied basic biology and are curious how models explain real ecological patterns.

Person 2

Yidi Ma is a first-year student in Vantage Science Program at UBC. Her research focuses on modeling the long-term outcomes of interspecies competition under resource constraints using the Lotka-Volterra equations. She is looking forward to learning more about how other student researchers design and carry out simulations or experiments to explore biological questions.

Person 3