Question

Describe what is meant by the fundamental and realised niche of a species and discuss why these may be different. Illustrate your answer with figures and examples where appropriate.

Answer 1

Q)Describe what is meant by the fundamental and realised niche of a species and discuss why these may be different. Illustrate your answer with figures and examples where appropriate.:

Ans:

Both fundamental and realized niches refer to the environmental position that species occupy in an ecosystem.

fundamental: Fundamental niches represent all the environmental conditions where a species is able to live

realised niche: the realized niche is where the species actually lives.

Other names for these niches are precompetitive and postcompetitive

Fundamental niche is the entire set of conditions under which an animal (population, species) can survive and reproduce itself.

Realized niche is the set of conditions actually used by given animal (pop, species), after interactions with other species (predation and especially competition) have been taken into account.

Sometimes FN and RN are termed precompetitive and postcompetitive niches, reflecting a traditional focus on interspecific competition's effect on niches.

Fundamental niches are the same size or larger than realized niches. Also, the same species living in different locations may have different realized niches depending on the competitors and predators that are present. Fundamental and realized niches can be wide or narrow. Specialist species is the term for organisms that live in narrow niches because they thrive only in certain environmental conditions or eat a certain food.

In a fundamental niche, an organism can take advantage of all the biotic and abiotic factors in an ecosystem without competition from other species or pressure from predators.

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