Competition

A competition or contest is an event where people get together to see who is the best at something. Someone who takes part in a competition ("enters for a competition") is called a competitor. The competitors compete against one another. The person who wins may get a prize. The prize might be a trophy or money.

Competitions can be for lots of different things, for example, sport, writing, music, dancing, science, or chess.

Some competitions need a referee. The referee will make sure that the game is played fairly and that the competitors obey the rules. In events like music competitions there will often be an adjudicator who will decide which person they think is the best.

Horse training for competition.

Biology and ecology

Competition within, between, and among species is one of the most important forces in biology, especially in the field of ecology.^[1]

Competition between members of a species ("intraspecific") for resources such as food, water, territory, and sunlight may result in an increase in the frequency of a variant of the species best suited for survival and reproduction until its fixation within a population. However, competition among resources also has a strong tendency for diversification between members of the same species, resulting in coexistence of competitive and non-competitive strategies or cycles between low and high competitiveness. Third parties within a species often favour highly competitive strategies leading to species extinction when environmental conditions are harsh (evolutionary suicide).^[2]

Forms

In nature, animals compete with one another for the best food, the best nesting places, etc. According to Charles Darwin, the competition in nature results in evolution.
In business, firms that make the same things or offer the same services are in competition with one another (see market forms).

The adjective of 'competition' is competitive.

If persons are "competitive" it means that they like trying to compete with other people.
Businesses often say that they sell things at "competitive prices". This means that their prices are lower than those of other businesses which sell similar things.

Examples of competitions

There are a lot of different kinds of competitions, for example:

Eating competitions, where people try to eat the most food
Running competitions, where people see who is the first to run from one place to another
Sport competitions, where sports teams try to beat each other to win a trophy
Singing competitions, where someone decides which person sang the best

or see the gallery of images below:

Related pages

↑ Keddy, P.A. 2001. Competition, 2nd ed., Kluwer, Dordrecht. 552 p.
↑ Baldauf, Sebastian A.; Engqvist, Leif; Weissing, Franz J. (29 October 2014). "Diversifying evolution of competitiveness" (PDF). Nature Communications. 5: 5233. Bibcode:2014NatCo...5.5233B. doi:10.1038/ncomms6233. PMID 25351604. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 September 2019. Retrieved 4 September 2019.

[Keddy,_P.A_2001-1] Keddy, P.A. 2001. Competition, 2nd ed., Kluwer, Dordrecht. 552 p.

[2] Baldauf, Sebastian A.; Engqvist, Leif; Weissing, Franz J. (29 October 2014). "Diversifying evolution of competitiveness" (PDF). Nature Communications. 5: 5233. Bibcode:2014NatCo...5.5233B. doi:10.1038/ncomms6233. PMID 25351604. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 September 2019. Retrieved 4 September 2019.

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