Mathematicians show how beetles can share a niche

New equations help solve decades-old puzzle of why one species doesn’t always outcompete another

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Placing two species of flour beetle in the same jar of flour needn’t always result in one species driving the other to extinction, as ecologists have thought. A new mathematical model presented January 5 at the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings shows how sometimes these two competing species can coexist.