An organism's ecological niche is its functional role within its community, how it obtains food, what it eats and what eats it, rather than simply the place it lives. Charles Elton gave the term this functional definition in his 1927 textbook Animal Ecology, distinguishing it from the earlier, purely spatial use of niche as a synonym for habitat.
Facts
Proposed YearSourced to the subject's own account Proposed BySourced to the subject's own account Connections
Associated With
Biodiversity, Concepts Niche differentiation among species is a principal driver of biodiversity
Elton's Animal Ecology (1927) introduced the ecological niche as an organism's functional role and position within its community, the founding formulation of the concept.
Ecological succession changes which niches are available and occupied in a community over time
Population ecology studies how populations occupy and partition ecological niches
Belongs To
Source Ecological niche (Wikipedia)
Studied In
Source Animal EcologyCharles Elton
Sources
1. Charles Elton (Wikipedia)
WikipediaCareer sectionQuote, Career section
In 1927, Elton published his classic Animal Ecology, outlining the principles behind ecological studies of animal behaviour and life history, such as food chains, size of food items, ecological niche, and the concept of a pyramid of numbers.
Animal Ecology
Charles Elton, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1927
Ecological niche (Wikipedia)
Belongs To: Ecology, Lead sentenceQuote, Belongs To: Ecology, Lead sentence
In ecology, a niche refers to the specific environmental condition occupied by a species or population.
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