Niche, Habitat, and Ecotope
@article{Whittaker1973NicheHA, title={Niche, Habitat, and Ecotope}, author={Robert H. Whittaker and Simon A. Levin and Richard B. Root}, journal={The American Naturalist}, year={1973}, volume={107}, pages={321 - 338} }
The confusion comes from use of the same word, "niche," for different concepts. We shall distinguish three senses of the word as: (a) the niche as the position or role of a species within a given community-the functional concept of niche; (b) the niche as the distributional relation of a species to a range of environments and communities-the niche as habitat, or the place niche concept; and (c) the niche as an amalgam of both these ideas, and thus defined by both intracommunity and…
669 Citations
A UNIFIED CONCEPT OF THE ECOLOGICAL NICHE
- Environmental Science
- 1989
The modern concept of ecological niche contains two basic meanings: (a) The “conditions of existence” or the hypervolume delimited by the range of values of the environmental variables permitting the…
Introduced Species and Vacant Niches
- Environmental ScienceThe American Naturalist
- 1986
The purpose is to demonstrate that introduced species have not provided unequivocal evidence for the existence of vacant niches because the conclusions of Simberloff (1981) resulted from his special definitions of effect and from his methods of analyzing the available information.
The Ecological Niche in Aquatic Ecosystems
- Environmental ScienceReference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences
- 2021
Habitat, environment and niche: what are we modelling?
- Environmental Science
- 2006
The terms 'habitat', 'environment' and 'niche' are used inconsistently, and with some confusion, within the ecological literature on species distribution and abundance modelling. Here I suggest…
Niche, habitat, and related ecological concepts
- Environmental ScienceActa biotheoretica
- 1975
It is proposed that the term “niche” would be most useful and rational if applied to the total of relationships between a living organism and its complete environment, both biotic and abiotic.
HABITAT, THE TEMPLET FOR ECOLOGICAL STRATEGIES?
- Environmental Science
- 1977
In this Address, the author will attempt some quantification, but will not be able to emulate those former Presidents who have been able to provide a definitative synthesis of a field or of their own studies, and his offering can be but a small beginning, an indication of the type of characteristics the authors should quantify.
The Niche Concept Revisited: Mechanistic Models and Community Context
- Environmental Science
- 1995
The niche concept is reviewed using “mechanistic” models of community theory to identify two distinct components; the “impact” niche describing instantaneous per—capita effects of species on the environment and the "requirement" niche describing the responses of species to the environment.
The Ecological Niche: History and Recent Controversies
- Environmental Science
- 2015
In this chapter, the history of the concept of ecological niche is traced and it is seen how its meanings varied with the search for a theory of ecology.
Organism-environment mutuality epistemics, and the concept of an ecological niche
- Environmental ScienceSynthese
- 2004
This essay seeks to standardize usage by limiting the concept of an ecological niche to functional relations between organisms and their surroundings, and to revise the concept to include epistemic relations.
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 51 REFERENCES
THE CONCEPT OF ECOLOGIC NICHE, WITH REFERENCE TO THE THEORY OF NATURAL COEXISTENCE
- Environmental Science
- 1958
An interesting discussion of the natural coexistence of closely related species of leafhoppers in the same ecologic situation is marred by a fundamental confusion in the usage of the term ecologic niche which makes fallacious almost all of his conclusions.
Distribution on Environmental Gradients: Theory and a Preliminary Interpretation of Distributional Patterns in the Avifauna of the Cordillera Vilcabamba, Peru
- Environmental Science
- 1971
A new theoretical approach to the study of distribution concerns the types of interactions between organisms and their surroundings which may function to impose limits on the occurrence of species on a smooth unifactorial environmental gradient in the Eastern Andes of Peru.
Niche specification and competition modeling.
- Environmental ScienceJournal of theoretical biology
- 1969
The ecological theater and the evolutionary play
- Art
- 1965
In the three lectures which give their title to this delightful collection of esays, the author of "The Enchanted Voyage" and "The Itinerate Ivory Tower" turns his attention to the influence of the…
A Multivariate Statistical Approach to the Hutchinsonian Niche: Bivalve Molluscs of Central Canada.
- Environmental ScienceEcology
- 1971
The use of multiple discriminant analysis to identify the significant and independent ecological factors separating species distributions is proposed and discussed and a generally applicable measure of environmental heterogeneity based upon this type of analysis is proposed.
On the Measurement of Niche Breadth and Overlap.
- Environmental ScienceEcology
- 1971
It is proposed that the species composition of communities utilizing different resource states may be used to develop weighting factors with which each state may be weighted in proportion to its degree of distinctness.
The Competitive Displacement and Coexistence Principles
- Environmental Science
- 1966
This paper deals primarily with competitive displacement between ecological homologues which is a unique and special type of interaction between species where one species brings about the extinction or displace ment of another ecologically homologous species, or prevents a second such species from invading and successfully colonizing all or a part of its habitat.
ON THE RELATIVE ABUNDANCE OF BIRD SPECIES.
- Environmental ScienceProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- 1957
The observed populations are not under the control of very local or rapid temporal processes; i.e., they are in a near-equilibrium state, and the hypotheses will be ones which yield an equilibrium or near-Equilibrium population.
On the Methods of Resource Division in Grassland Bird Communities
- Environmental ScienceThe American Naturalist
- 1968
It is suggested that South American communities have a full quota of species which are optimally adapted to their current environment.
The Environmental Complex in Relation to Plant Growth and Distribution
- Environmental ScienceThe Quarterly Review of Biology
- 1952
The purpose of the present paper is to bring together some of the recent ideas and work in the widely scattered fields of plant ecology and its underlying sciences, with the hope that such a synthesis will help to show in what directions future research in ecology is needed.