Synonyms
Definition
The ecological niche corresponds to the sum total of unique ways in which a species is accommodated by and interacts with both biotic and abiotic factors in its surrounding ecology. Niches can be modeled as n-dimensional hypervolumes, whose dimensions correspond to the distribution of a species along abiotic and biotic gradients. Niches are idiosyncratic to species, with no two species sharing the same niche, although considerable overlap among niches can exist within a given ecosystem owing to competition.
Introduction
The term niche was first utilized in an ecological context by zoologist Joseph Grinnell (1917); however a rigorous quantitative definition of niche was not forthcoming until the 1950s. The concept has had a tumultuous history, having become unfashionable in ecology in the latter decades of the twentieth century owing to criticism from the philosophy of science and the rise of competing models. The concept has started to make a comeback in...
References
Chase, J. M., & Leibold, M. A. (2003). Ecological niches: Linking classical and contemporary approaches. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Elton, C. (1927). Animal ecology. London: Sidgwick and Jackson.
Grinnell, J. (1917). The niche relationship of the California thrasher. Auk, 34, 427–433.
Hubbell, S. P. (2001). The unified neutral theory of species abundance and diversity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hutchinson, G. E. (1957). Concluding remarks. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 22, 415–427.
Hutchinson, G. E. (1959). Homage to Santa Rosalia or why are there so many kinds of animals? American Naturalist, 93, 145–159.
Odling-Smee, F. J., Laland, K. N., & Feldman, M. W. (2003). Niche construction: The neglected process in evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pueyo, S., He, F., & Zillo, T. (2007). The maximum entropy formalism and the idiosyncratic theory of biodiversity. Ecology Letters, 10, 1017–1028.
Simberloff, D. S. (1978). Using island biogeographic distributions to determine if colonization is stochastic. American Naturalist, 112, 713–726.
Strong, D. R., Szyska, L. A., & Simberloff, D. S. (1979). Tests of community-wide character displacement against null hypotheses. Evolution, 33, 897–913.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1990). The past explains the present: Emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethology & Sociobiology, 11, 375–424.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Woodley of Menie, M.A. (2018). Ecological Niche, The. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2116-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2116-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences