MY BIOLOGY EDU-JOURNEY

ECOLOGY

by Purwaning Rohmah/BIO off A 2015 UM

ECOLOGICAL NICHE

The total used of biotic and abiotic sources in the ecosystem is called ecological niche. Eugene Odum used this analogy to exlplain niche: If habitat is the “address”, so niche is the “profession”. So, it can be concluded that niche of an organism is the ecology role of the organism—how the organism participate in the ecosystem. The example is the niche of tropical lizard included thermal tolerance range, the size of branches where it used to stand, activity time in a day, kind and size of insects they eat.

We can use the niche concept to state back the competitive exclusion: 2 species cannot live together permanently in a community if both niche are identic. But, species that ecologically similar can live together in a community if there is one or more significant niche difference. When the competition between species happened, it will not make any local species extinct because species’ niche is modificated. In other words, evolution through nature selection can affects one of both species used another sources.

The differentiation of niches which may similar species to live together in a community is called resource partitioning. As the affect of competition, fundamental nicheof the species which is potential to placed by the species is different from realized niche (part of fundamental niche that is absolutely placed by the organism).

From the text above, we know that niche related to the behavior of a species living under specific environmental conditions. Niche is divided into types:

1. Fundamental Niche. the largest niche in which a species could persist in the absence of adverse interactions with other species(not necessarily overlapping with realized niche - algae associated in lichen have an entirely shifted niche than alone)

2. Realized Niche. the (generally smaller) niche volume occupied by a species in the presence of interspecific interactions

The examples:

1. Warblers' niche