In a fish species, the number of eggs that hatch and survive for one year varies depending on the number of eggs that were produced. As the number of eggs produced increases past a threshold number, the survival rate of the offspring decreases. Which of the following statements best explains why only a limited number of offspring can survive in a fish population? A. Resource partitioning allows similar species to coexist in the same ecological community. B. The number of fish surviving after one year is proportional to the number of eggs produced. C. The chance of survival decreases when there is intraspecific competition for resources among surviving yearlings. D. More yearling fish survive beyond one year when there is an abundance of prey species present.

C. The chance of survival decreases when there is intraspecific competition for resources among surviving yearlings

Explanation:

The survival rate of the offspring of the fish species will decrease as a result of the huge number of eggs produced giving rise to overpopulation. Pressure will be on the limited available resources. As a result of this, Intraspecific competition would occur as members of the same fish species would compete for the limited resources.

Interference and exploitation competition are two types of Intraspecific competition that can reduce the population size of the fish species.

For Interference competition, the dominant and stronger members would secure adequate supply of the limited resources to detriment of the weaker and less dominant ones. This leads to the death of those members that are weak to compete successfully, thereby leading to a reduction in population size.

In exploitation competition, it involves all individual members of the fish species sharing the limited resources equally, while none of them gets an adequate amount. With time, a great size of the population decrease would be noticed when compared to that of Interference competition.