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1 - The Ecological Niche

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2021

James Justus
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Summary

At least until Hubbell’s neutral theory emerged, no concept was thought more important to ecological theorizing than the niche. Without it – and its highly abstract definition by Hutchinson in particular – technically sophisticated and well-regarded theories of character displacement, community assembly, limiting similarity, and many others would seemingly never have been developed. To cite just one example among many, grasslands in the central plains of North America and Africa share a similar structure and exhibit similar dynamics because they are claimed to instantiate roughly the same system of niches, albeit with different species. The niche concept is also the centerpiece of perhaps the best candidate for a distinctively ecological law, the competitive exclusion principle. But the incongruous array of proposed definitions of the concept squares poorly with its apparent scientific centrality. I argue this definitional diversity reflects a problematic conceptual imprecision that challenges its putative indispensability in ecological theory. Recent attempts to integrate these disparate definitions into a unified characterization fail to resolve the imprecision. The niche is not the conceptual cornerstone of ecological science.

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Chapter
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The Philosophy of Ecology
An Introduction
, pp. 14 - 37
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • The Ecological Niche
  • James Justus, Florida State University
  • Book: The Philosophy of Ecology
  • Online publication: 28 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139626941.003
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  • The Ecological Niche
  • James Justus, Florida State University
  • Book: The Philosophy of Ecology
  • Online publication: 28 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139626941.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Ecological Niche
  • James Justus, Florida State University
  • Book: The Philosophy of Ecology
  • Online publication: 28 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139626941.003
Available formats
×