Which of the following best describes the difference between a realized niche and a fundamental niche?

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University of Cambridge

Angela C.

Biology

10 months, 2 weeks ago

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Which of the following statements about niches is true? a) the realized niche and fundamental niches are always equal b) the realized niche is what you observe when competitors are absent the realized niche is always smaller than (or equal to) the fundamental niche the fundamental niche can be determined using observational data on the distribution of organisms the fundamental niche is always smaller than (or equal to) the realized niche

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Page 2

Scattergram (decimal logarithm) of the measure of the existing (N*(t, G)) versus the fundamental (NF) niches for 105 species.

The units for NF and N*(t, G) are in °C. The straight line is the line of Existing = Fundamental. The units of the existing niche can be transformed to units of area potentially suitable for each species. The distance between a point and the line is a measure of how much potential for evolving wider tolerance ranges a species has (see text).

Click on the image to see a larger version.