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What is an Ecological Niche |
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Written by admin
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Friday, 11 July 2008 |
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An ecological niche refers to the description of the relational position of the population or a species living in a particular ecosystem. On a more detailed manner ecological niche can be understood as the response or coordination of the population or a species to the different types of resources and living beings distributed in the same ecosystem. For an instance how does a hub of deer react to the predators like lions and tigers and the large green landmasses present in a forest? Here the forest is the ecosystem, predators are competitors and deer is the species or population. So in any ecosystem the kind of coordination the organisms have between each other and their response towards the resources present in the ecosystem is what we can define an ecological niche as. Factors determining an Ecological Niche!! Ecological niches represent characterize various types of aboitic and biotic components which involves keeping a record of the organism’s origin, habitat, tropical position and geographic adaptations. As per the researches of Competitive Exclusion principle only one kind of species is capable of occupying one standard position in a niche in an environment. It is not possible for two species two have a same position in the same niche and that too in the very same environment. However it there is a possibility for diverse species to acquire similar niches in different locations. Taking an example of the Australian grasslands species which were different from the grassland species of Great Plains however both acquired the same kind of niche.
If we peep through the pages of past, the term niche was introduced by naturalist Sir Joseph Grinnell in somewhere way back in the 1917s though his focus was not ecology. It was Charles Sutherland Elton, a British Ecologist who in 1927 coined the proper definition of the niche in terms of Ecology. Further it was G. Evelyn Hutchinson, a zoologist by profession who popularized this concept. The reason for him popularizing about the ecological niches was the curiosity of knowing why and how so many different types of organisms could live under one habitat. He called an ecological niche as "HYPERVOLUME" which symbolizes multi-dimensional space of resources accessible to the organism. Further there also exists a term related to Ecological Niche known as Adaptive Zone which was coined by George Simpson which details about the Ecological Niches which are occupied groups of species which also make use of the resources in the same manner as in the normal niches. It is interesting to know that Hutchinson’s description is entirely different from the description given by Grinnell. The entire array of the environmental conditions both biological and physical available to the organism are responsible for determining the kind of niche the organism might opt too. However due to inter relational coordination with other organisms often forces the organism to seek shelter in a niche which is much narrower than the organism’s requirement. Thus this kind of adaptation of by an organism is termed as realized niche. Niche system is quite interesting as in ecological niches if one species changes it niche or leaves the present niche then it is not a problem for another species to adapt to that niche. Also plants and animals whenever get exposed to a new environment are bound to overthrow the inherent organisms of a native niche and occupy it or else enter into a new niche.
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