ecological niche
Americannoun
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Different organisms may compete for the same niche. For example, in a forest there may be a niche for an organism that can fly and eat nectar from blossoms. This niche may be filled by some sort of bird, or an insect, or even a mammal such as a bat.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The terror birds, which out-competed the mammals in occupying this particular ecological niche, may even have driven mammalian predators to take to the forests instead.
From Salon • Feb. 25, 2025
And competition with an extremely flexible generalist in almost every ecological niche may be what contributed to the extinction of all other Homo species.
From Science Daily • Apr. 17, 2024
Hopefully some possible futures include an ecological niche for humans.
From Scientific American • Nov. 7, 2023
In some areas, species have had tens of millions of years to migrate and specialize, “filling each ecological niche completely.”
From National Geographic • Oct. 13, 2023
Because there is at least one other ecological niche in such an environment: hunting.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
