Place

This note is about the concept of niche in ecology and, by extension, in other fields.

^{Biomes, Ecosystems, and Habitats | National Geographic Society}

Definition

Types of niches:

• ecological niche
• evolutionary niche
• cultural niche (cultural niche construction) 1, 2
• social niche 3
• emotional niche
• technological niche
• interpersonal and affective niche
• semiotic niche. 4 The world of cues around the animal, which the animal must interpret. The semiosphere is the totality of actual or potential cues in the world. It is an externalistic counterpart to the totality of Umwelts.

Processes:

• enculturation

Ecological Niche

Niche is the role of a species in its environment including responses to resources, competitors, and predators.

See the discussion in Chapter 2 in:

Odling-Smee, F. John, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman. Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

The concept of the evolutionary niche in Niche Construction Theory is defined as "the sum of selection pressures affecting a population". So defined, the evolutionary niche is narrower than the ecological niche.

Cases in which the evolutionary niche does not coincide with realized ecological niches:

• extreme habitat degradation
• commensalism
• non-limiting or super-abundant resources

Trappes, Rose. “Defining the Niche for Niche Construction: Evolutionary and Ecological Niches.” Biology & Philosophy 36, no. 3 (2021): 31. https://doi.org/10/gmskzw.

See this article also on Supply and "coexistence theory".

Koffel, Thomas, Tanguy Daufresne, and Christopher A. Klausmeier. “From Competition to Facilitation and Mutualism: A General Theory of the Niche.” Ecological Monographs 91, no. 3 (2021): e01458. https://doi.org/10/gjwg4k.

See chapter 13, "Evolutionary Niche" in:

Pianka, Eric R. Evolutionary Ecology. 7th ed. 1974. Reprint, San Francisco, Calif: Benjamin Cummings, 2011.

• As for the Habitat, biotic and abiotic factors define the niche.
• However, a niche is the interactions of a population with these factors and its effects.
• Niche is a part of the habitat. It describes what organisms do.
• Niche depends on the flow of energy within an ecosystem.
• If a niche is left vacant, it can then be filled by some other species. However, some organisms might create a unique niche for themselves, which reduces the competition for resources with other species.
• However, it is also important for species to be able to adapt to changes in the ecosystem to protect themselves from extinction. For this reason, many species usually adapt or evolve to thrive under a wide range of environmental conditions.
• The type and number of variables that define an ecological niche vary from species to species, and the relative importance of these variables may also vary according to the geographical and biotic contexts.
• The full range of biotic and abiotic factors utilized by species for survival form the fundamental niche, and the factors that limit the population like competition and predations are called limiting factors.
• Based on the interactions of species with the physical and biological world, niches are of three types; spatial or habitat niche, trophic niche, and multidimensional niche.
• The spatial or habitat niche is the physical area within the habitat that a species occupies.
• Trophic niche is the trophic level occupied by the species in the food chain or ecological chain.
• The multidimensional niche consists of the concept of fundamental niche and the limiting factors.

For a contrast with the notion of habitat, see: Habitat vs Niche- Definition, 14 Major Differences, Examples (thebiologynotes.com)

For a discussion, see:

Polechová, Jitka, and David Storch. “Ecological Niche.” In Encyclopedia of Ecology, edited by Brian Fath, 2nd ed., 72–80. 2008. Reprint, Oxford: Elsevier, 2019.

Cf. ecotope: the smallest spatial object or component of a geographical landscape so defined for measurement and statistical modelling.

On the brief introduction to the evolution of the ecological niche, see:

Losos, Jonathan B., ed. The Princeton Guide to Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.

Sultan, Sonia E. Organism and Environment: Ecological Development, Niche Construction, and Adaption. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

"The niche-construction perspective within evolutionary biology is of value to the extent that it draws attention to the active, constructive capabilities of living organisms and to the many, and often neglected, forms of feedback that flow from these, be they to developmental, ecological, evolutionary, or sociocultural processes" 5

Properties and the Measurement of Niches

Loke, Lynette H. L., and Ryan A. Chisholm. ‘Measuring Habitat Complexity and Spatial Heterogeneity in Ecology’. Ecology Letters, 2022. https://doi.org/10/gqp4p2.

The Ecological Niche of Humans

An article showing evidence of early, persistent and large-scale ecological changes emanating from the activities of Humans from The Late Pleistocene also known as Upper Pleistocene is currently defined as the time between c. 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago.

Boivin, Nicole L., Melinda A. Zeder, Dorian Q. Fuller, Alison Crowther, Greger Larson, Jon M. Erlandson, Tim Denham, and Michael D. Petraglia. “Ecological Consequences of Human Niche Construction: Examining Long-Term Anthropogenic Shaping of Global Species Distributions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 23 (2016): 6388–96. https://doi.org/10/f8qmfk.

For a comment on this article, see:

Ellis, Erle C., Peter J. Richerson, Alex Mesoudi, Jens-Christian Svenning, John Odling-Smee, and William R. Burnside. “Evolving the Human Niche.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 31 (2016): E4436–E4436. https://doi.org/10/gfvhrp.

Dupré, John, and Daniel Nicholson. ‘A Manifesto for a Processual Philosophy of Biology’. In Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology, edited by Daniel J. Nicholson and John Dupré, 3–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Humans Engineering of Niches

Shahab, Robert L., Simone Brethauer, Jeremy S. Luterbacher, and Michael H. Studer. ‘Engineering of Ecological Niches to Create Stable Artificial Consortia for Complex Biotransformations’. Current Opinion in Biotechnology 62 (2020): 129–36. https://doi.org/10/grqhsx.

Description and Measurement

Needs to be in 3D

Gámez, Siria, and Nyeema C. Harris. ‘Conceptualizing the 3D Niche and Vertical Space Use’. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2022. https://doi.org/10/gqkx4t.

And as multi-dimensional hypervolumes.

Lu, Muyang, Kevin Winner, and Walter Jetz. ‘A Unifying Framework for Quantifying and Comparing N-Dimensional Hypervolumes’. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 12, no. 10 (2021): 1953–68. https://doi.org/10/gk75nh.

Holt, Robert D. ‘Bringing the Hutchinsonian Niche into the 21st Century: Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. Supplement 2 (2009): 19659–65. https://doi.org/10/dqmfh7.

Niche Construction

Cf. habitat construction as a synonym. Also place making, placemaking.

Sultan, Sonia E. Organism and Environment: Ecological Development, Niche Construction, and Adaption. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Or​ganism’s niche-constructing activities can influence biotic and ​abiotic selection pressures on the ​organism itself, in a type of diffuse coevolution.

All niches are in some way constructed because they are a result of processes, the same must be true for places.

​Organisms inevitably modify their environments via:

• physical
• by their presence
• resource ​uptake
• waste deposition

It is possible to measure these impacts as ​external to organisms but they result ​from and contribute to the features of the organisms themselves including eco-devo responses and adaptive functionality.

Cf. also 'cultural niche construction'.

Humans as drivers of nonhuman evolution.

Biogeomorphology

As a form of niche construction and habitat construction. Cf. anthropogeomorphology.

Viles, Heather, and Martin Coombes. ‘Biogeomorphology in the Anthropocene: A Hierarchical, Traits-Based Approach’. Geomorphology 417 (2022): 108446. https://doi.org/10/grztxb.

Critical Perspectives on Niche Construction

DiFrisco, James, and Richard Gawne. “Biological Agency: A Concept Without a Research Program.” Journal of Evolutionary Biology 38, no. 2 (2025): 143–56. https://doi.org/10/g86xdq.

Laland, Kevin, Tobias Uller, Marc Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd B. Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka, et al. “Does Evolutionary Theory Need a Rethink?” Nature 514, no. 7521 (2014): 161–64. https://doi.org/10/gdqdff.

Implications

Importance of inclusive, holistic governance and design.

Importance of continuous designing, integrated life cycle tracking.

Human Niche Construction

Kendal, Jeremy R., Jamshid J. Tehrani, and John Olding-Smee, eds. ‘Human Niche Construction’. Special issue. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366, no. 1566 (2011): 783–934.

Ellis, Erle C., Peter J. Richerson, Alex Mesoudi, Jens-Christian Svenning, John Odling-Smee, and William R. Burnside. ‘Evolving the Human Niche’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 31 (2016): E4436–E4436. https://doi.org/10/gfvhrp.

Altman, Arie, and Alex Mesoudi. ‘Understanding Agriculture within the Frameworks of Cumulative Cultural Evolution, Gene-Culture Co-Evolution, and Cultural Niche Construction’. Human Ecology 47, no. 4 (2019): 483–97. https://doi.org/10/gf6zxz.

Sullivan, Alexis P., Douglas W. Bird, and George H. Perry. “Human Behaviour as a Long-Term Ecological Driver of Non-Human Evolution.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 1, no. 3 (2017): 1–11. https://doi.org/10/gbrz7b.

Urban Evolution

Szulkin, Marta, Jason Munshi-South, and Anne Charmantier, eds. Urban Evolutionary Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

References

The notion of niche construction (processual) is the opposite ontology to that of extended phenotype (substantialist).

Dupré, John, and Daniel Nicholson. ‘A Manifesto for a Processual Philosophy of Biology’. In Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology, edited by Daniel J. Nicholson and John Dupré, 3–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Odling-Smee, F. John, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman. Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

---

Footnotes

1. Kendal, Jeremy R. “Cultural Niche Construction and Human Learning Environments: Investigating Sociocultural Perspectives.” Biological Theory 6, no. 3 (2011): 241–50. https://doi.org/10/g83twz.˄

2. Nagatsu, Michiru, Roope O. Kaaronen, Mikko Salmela, and Miles MacLeod. “Cultural Niche Construction as a Framework for Reorienting Human−Environment Relations.” Topics in Cognitive Science 15, no. 3 (2023): 413–32. https://doi.org/10/g84vjr.˄

3. Krueger, Joel. “Emotions and the Social Niche.” In Collective Emotions: Perspectives from Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology, edited by Christian von Scheve and Mikko Salmella, 156–71. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.˄

4. Hoffmeyer, Jesper. Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs. 2005. Reprint, Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2008.˄

5. Odling-Smee, John, and Kevin N. Laland. “Ecological Inheritance and Cultural Inheritance: What Are They and How Do They Differ?” Biological Theory 6, no. 3 (2011): 220–30. https://doi.org/10/ggcm7w.˄