Chapter 47, Problem 1QC

Summary Introduction

To identify:

The larger niche, the fundamental niche or the realized niche.

Concept Introduction:

The fundamental niche involves all the climatic conditions, food resources which are necessary for the individuals to live. The realized niche includes the range, which is occupied by the competition or predation.

Explanation of Solution

The fundamental niche is of larger size because it includes all the habitats by including their climate conditions, food resources which are necessary to live, but in realized niche, the actual range is held by species which can survive through the competition of predator-prey.

In realized niche, the species need to compete for the biotic factors and food resources which are not seen in fundamental niche. The larger frogs act as predators on the tadpoles in the realized niche, which decreases its size and makes it smaller than the fundamental niche.

Conclusion

The competition between the species decreases the size of realized niche over fundamental niche because it does not exclude the species, but includes the overall habitat.