Niche

A niche is a particular role or function that a population serves in an ecosystem in a given period of history. These roles most commonly relate to predation and the “food web” relationships within the ecosystem.

All species have a set of inherent, accustomed niches that are based around their characteristics known as fundamental niches. In execution, they tend to have a limited range of niches based on competitors and other populations in the ecosystem, known as a realized niche. Either of these sets of niches can shift wildly throughout a species or population’s lifespan, and either can change with regard to different periods of the species’ lifecycle or between different sexes in a dioecious species.