The niche is a flexible concept and I think that trying to come up with a
precise definition is pointless. Hutchinson had a very formal definition
relating environmental conditions to the persistence of a population, which
has been widely adopted even though the environmental conditions usually
represent a transient situation and persistence is of course long term.
Strict Hutchinsonians abhor such useful concepts as the "empty niche", an
attitude which I find to be an annoyance and a nuisance. Fenchel and
Christiansen wrote a nice book on niche theory with some useful material on
niche packing. The late Rob Peters did his best to make the concept useless
by his attacks on Gauss' Competitive Exclusion Principle.
It is a very useful concept, but efforts to be precise and rigorous have
discouraged its use.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "malcolm McCallum" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 3:57 AM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Ecology Terms Definition Niche
when I have a niche I scratch it! :)
there are many different niche definitions.
Here is what I use in Ecology:
fundamental niche: the theoretical maximum resources that could be
used by a population.
Realized niche: the actual resources that are used by a population.
there is also a functional niche that comes out of functional ecology.
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Wayne Tyson<[email protected]> wrote:
All:
What is your definition of niche?
WT
