📝 SummarXiv

Abstract

Everyone can see that over the last 150 years, theoretical ecology has become considerably more mathematical. But what is the nature of this phenomenon? Are mathematics applied, as in the use of statistical tests, for example, or are they involved, as in physics, where laws cannot be expressed without them? Through the history of the {\em Competitive Exclusion Principle} formulated at the very beginning of the 20th century by the naturalist Grinnell concerning the distribution of brown-backed chickadees, up to its modern integration into what is known in mathematics as population dynamics, I highlight the effectiveness of what could be called the mathematical novel in clarifying certain concepts in theoretical ecology.