Fundamental and Realised Niche

Following on from the last lesson where we looked at Gause's Law of Competitive Exclusion, today we looked at fundamental and realised niches.

Fundamental niches are the entire range of abiotic factors that a species could survive in, even if survival is very difficult.

The realised niche is where you fine the majority of the species, after competition is taken into account.

We looked at a real life example to illustrate this, Brown barnacles and Modest barnacles.

Along the way we discussed how we account for tidal variations (using the mean high water mark and the mean low water mark). This will come in useful if you go on to study level 3 biology or marine science.