Abiologist studying alpine wildflowers notices that two populations of similar species are able to occupy the same niches. however, species a is mostly found at lower altitudes, while species b is mostly found at higher altitudes. what has most likely caused the realized niches of these two wildflower populations to be smaller than their fundamental niches?

The answer is resource partitioning. Due to competition between the two species population,  the two species evolved to utilize different resources. Therefore, this is rather than competitive exclusion that results to the out-competition of one species, or competition that results in a negative interaction between the species.  

many phylogenetic trees have a single lineage at the base representing a common ancestor. a lineage that evolved early from the root and remains unbranched is called basal taxon. when two lineages stem from the same branch point, they are called sister taxa.

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explanation: