Niche Breadth: Causes and Consequences for Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation

Niche breadth is a unifying concept spanning diverse aspects of ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. Niche breadth usually refers to the diversity of resources used or environments tolerated by an individual, population, species, or clade. Here we review key research in ecology, evolution,...

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Published inThe Quarterly review of biology Vol. 95; no. 3; pp. 179 - 214
Main Authors Carscadden, Kelly A., Emery, Nancy C., Arnillas, Carlos A., Cadotte, Marc W., Afkhami, Michelle E., Gravel, Dominique, Livingstone, Stuart W., Wiens, John J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore The University of Chicago Press 01.09.2020
University of Chicago, acting through its Press
Subjects
Biological evolution
Biology
Climate change
Conservation
Conservation biology
Ecological effects
Ecology
Environmental changes
Evolution
Evolutionary conservation
Geographical distribution
Invasive species
Niche breadth
Resource conservation
Species diversity
Species extinction
Species richness
biodiversity-ecosystem functioning
invasion
biogeography
specialist
generalist
interaction networks
community assembly
climate change
speciation
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Summary:Niche breadth is a unifying concept spanning diverse aspects of ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. Niche breadth usually refers to the diversity of resources used or environments tolerated by an individual, population, species, or clade. Here we review key research in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology in light of niche breadth. Namely, we explore the role of niche breadth in shaping geographic distributions and species richness from local to landscape scales, how niche breadth evolves and influences lineage diversification, and its use for understanding species invasions, responses to climate change, vulnerability to extinction, and ecosystem functioning. This diverse literature informs a research agenda that identifies focused needs for further progress: testing the hierarchical nature of niche breadth (e.g., of individuals, populations, and species); quantifying correlations in niche breadth among different niche axes and the role of environmental drivers and organismal constraints in generating these correlations; and evaluating the factors that decouple fundamental and realized niches. We describe how this research agenda could help unify disparate subdisciplines and shed light on key questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation.
ISSN:0033-5770
1539-7718
DOI:10.1086/710388