The distinguished ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson provided one of the most important explanations for how competing species can coexist. Explain his fundamental niche concept, and how he would account for closely related species coexisting

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Hutchinson suggested that each species has a fundamental niche, a range of environmental conditions (such as its requirement for temperature, food, and water), over which the species might possibly exist. Hutchinson noted that few species actually grow and reproduce in all parts of their theoretical range. Rather, each species usually exists only where they are able to compete effectively against other species: its realized niche. In the 1930s, the biologist G. F. Gause studied interspecific competition, ultimately postulating the competitive exclusion principle: when two species directly compete for essential resources, one species will eventually displace the other. In other words, Hutchinson explained that when the fundamental niche of two species significantly overlaps, these potential competitors are able to coexist because they divide up the fundamental niche, as no two species can occupy the same realized niche.