Community Ecology



Community Ecology

Niche theory and guilds

Outline:

1. Definition of niche: response functions vs. resource utilization functions

A. Grinnell: emphasis on a species’ "place" (more than just locational)

B. Elton: emphasis on a species’ role

C. Hutchinson: emphasis on resources used by species

i. n-dimensional hypervolume

ii. fundamental vs. realized niches

iii. ecological release

2. So how can species coexist?  Answer: niche partitioning

A. Limiting similarity

B. Character displacement

i. the Hutchinsonian 1.3 size ratio

3. Niche vs. guild vs. functional group

 

niche

According to Chase and Leibold (2003), the term niche was first used in the ecological sense by Johnson (1910): “One expects the different species in a region to occupy different niches in the environment” (referring to various ladybug species). However, this was (and is) an obscure work, so it is more usually attributed to Joseph Grinnell (1917) to denote a species’ "place" in the environment (i.e., set of environmental conditions that meet a species’ life-history requirements)

Difference between niche and habitat – Odum’s “address vs. profession” analogy

Chas. Elton (1927) emphasized the role of a species in the environment

Do empty niches exist?

G. Evelyn Hutchinson (1957)

"n-dimensional hypervolume"

1. fundamental (pre-interactive) niche - potential niche

2. realized (post-interactive) niche - actual niche

           

Example from Orians and Willson (1964) involving Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) and Yellow-headed Blackbirds (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus)

“Ecological release” – mongoose example

 

Ecological niches can thus be defined in terms of:

-response functions: how species are distributed on environmental gradients with respect to limitation and optimal performance (a physiological view, prevalent among plant ecologists), i.e., a species’ response to the environment (Whose ideas follow this?)

-resource utilization functions: how species use resources (Whose ideas follow this?)

 

So if a niche can only be occupied by one species, but if resources are limited such that competitors must share niche space, how similar in terms of niche can two species be and still coexist? The competitive exclusion principle states that coexistence hinges on niche differentiation (a.k.a. niche partitioning).

 

Consider the words of Gause (1934), when discussing the competitive exclusion principle: "...as a result of competition two species hardly ever occupy similar niches, but displace each other in such a manner that each takes possess of certain kinds of food and modes of life in which it has an advantage over its competitor."  This is niche partitioning. 

 

But since most organisms are rare and secretive, how do we observe this? We usually do so only indirectly, via morphology (Ricklefs and Travis 1980):

limiting similarity

Hutchinsonian size ratio

Character displacement

 

Robert MacArthur (1958) examined niche overlap in a group of five sympatric warbler species (Bay-breasted, Myrtle, Blackburnian, Cape May, and Black-throated Green) in New Hampshire that were the same size and ate the same arthropod species in the same tree!: if they were so similar, how could they coexist?

- found that the birds partitioned the niche space physically

 

Similar but distinct terms:

Guild -

 

Functional group -

Because the niche concept examines coexistence, it is of fundamental importance to CE. But it has also been the source of much frustration and controversy due to differences in definition (place vs. role vs. hypervolume), and a backlash against it occurred in the late 1970s-80s due to the lack of null models (part of the more general null model revolution in ecology as a whole at that time).

Note how niche theory has traditionally been related to competition via the competitive exclusion principle. Also note that this principle is untestable, however, because a failure to find niche differences among species that do coexist may always be attributed to the failure to measure the critical (but unknown) niche dimension that separates the species)!

References:

 

NOTE: the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences vol. 106 suppl. 2 (2009) has a special colloquium devoted to the niche concept.

Abrams, P.A. 1983. The theory of limiting similarity. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 14:359-376.

 

Barabás, G., R.D. Andrea, and A.M. Ostling. 2013. Species packing in nonsmooth competition models. Theoretical Ecology 6:1-19.

Bruno, J.F., J.J. Stachowicz, and M.D. Bertness. 2003. Inclusion of facilitation into ecology theory. Trends in Ecology and. Evolution 18119-125.

Chase, J.M., and M.A. Leibold. 2003. Ecological Niches: Linking Classical and Contemporary Approaches. Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

 

Elton, C.S. 1927. Animal Ecology. Sidgwick and Jackson, London, UK.

 

Gaffney, B.M. 1975. Roots of the niche concept. Am. Nat. 109:490.

 

Grinnell, J. 1917. The niche-relationships of the California Thrasher. Auk 34:427-433.

 

Hawkins, C.P., and J.P. MacMahon. 1989. Guilds: the multiple meanings of a concept. Annual Review of Entomology 34:423-451.

 

Hutchinson, G.E. 1957. Concluding remarks. Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology 22:415-427.

 

Jaksíc, F.M. 1981. Abuse and misuse of the term "guild" in ecological studies. Oikos 37:397-400.

 

Johnson, R.H. 1910. Determinate Evolution in the Color Pattern of the Lady-Beetles. Publication No. 122 of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, Washington, D.C.

MacArthur, R.H. 1958. Population ecology of some warblers of northeastern coniferous forests. Ecology 39:599-619.

 

MacArthur, R.H. 1972. Geographical Ecology: Patterns in the Distribution of Species. Harper and Row, New York, NY.

MacArthur, R.H., and R. Levins. 1967. The limiting similarity, convergence, and divergence of coexisting species. American Naturalist 101: 377-385.

MacMahon, J.A., D.J. Schimpf, D.C. Andersen, K.G. Smith, and R.L. Bayn, Jr. 1981. An organism-centered approach to some community and ecosystem concepts. J. Theoret. Biol. 88:287-307.

 

Meszéna, G., M. Gyllenberg, L. Pásztor, and J.A.J. Metz. 2006. Competitive exclusion and limiting similarity: A unified theory. Theoretical Population Biology 69:68-87.

Mittelbach, G.G., and B.J. McGill. 2019. Community Ecology, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Orians, G.H., and M.F. Willson. 1964. Interspecific territories of birds. Ecology 45:736-745.

 

Ricklefs, R.E., and J. Travis. 1980. A morphological approach to the study of avian community organization. Auk 97:321-328.

 

Root, R.B. 1967. The niche exploitation pattern of the blue-gray gnatcatcher. Ecol. Monogr. 37:317-350.

 

Simberloff, D., and T. Dayan. 1991. The guild concept and the structure of ecological communities. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 22:115-143.

 

Terborgh, J., and S. Robinson. 1986. Guilds and their utility in ecology. Pp. 65-90 in: Community Ecology: Patterns and Processes (J. Kikkawa and D.J. Anderson, eds.). Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, UK.

 

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