the.com/ecological niche
Not where you live, but how you make a living and avoid being eaten.
means The specific role a species plays in its environment — what it eats, what eats it, when it's active, and what conditions it needs to survive and reproduce.
from 'Niche' entered English from French 'nicher', 'to nest', itself traced to Latin 'nidus' for nest — the same root giving us 'nidify' and relatives of 'nest' itself. It first meant a literal recess in a wall for a statue, a snug carved-out spot. Ecologists borrowed that image in the 20th century, but reshaped it: a niche stopped being a physical nook and became a functional one — not an address but an occupation, the sum of what an organism does to get by and the conditions it needs to keep doing it.
- not a place
- it is a job, not an address
- coined by
- grinnell, 1917, studying thrashers
- competitive exclusion
- two species, same niche, one loses
- realized vs fundamental
- what you could do versus what rivals let you