Niche divergence and competition
The present study showed that, at the local scale, sister species showed
larger divergence than closely related species, almost all sister
species pairs showed no overlap, and the overlaps between sister species
were significantly less than those between closely related species,
which is consistent with the competition exclusion principle. Niche
divergence has been found to be important in maintaining diversity,
initiating and completing speciation. The present results provide data
well supporting the existing viewpoints.