Habitats and Niches

• Organism: anything that is living
• Population: an interbreeding group of individuals of a single species that occupy the same general area.
• Community: the assemblage of interacting populations that inhibit the same area.
• Ecosystem: comprised of 1 or more communities and the abiotic environment within an area.
• Habitat: an area with a particular combination of physical and biological environmental factor that affect which organisms live within it.
• Terrestrial ecosystems (land): desert, forest, meadows.
• Aquatic ecosystems: fresh (lakes, rivers) and marine (ocean).
• Tolerance: the range of external conditions within which a species can survive and reproduce.
• A species niche includes the range of physical and biological conditions in which it can survive and reproduce, as well as the way it obtains the resources it needs.
• All species occupy a niche.
• Which a niche is available, a species will occupy it.
• If two species occupy a niche, one will become extinct.
• Keystone Species: plays a vital and unique role in maintaining structure, stability, and diversity in an ecosystem.
• More niches, more diversity.