Digging deeper ecological niches answer key drivers#
Climate change, habitat fragmentation and loss, and biological invasions are often the drivers of species extinction and of alterations of the biological relationships amongst species (Pereira et al., 2012 Malhi et al., 2019).
To counteract this tendency, several efforts have been made worldwide to understand and reduce biodiversity loss (Leifeld & Menichetti, 2018 Roberts et al., 2020). Human-induced global changes deeply modify the structure and functioning of ecosystems, and in turn affect biodiversity patterns in several ways (Western, 2001). Hence, some subjectively selected study cases when alleged phenomena of niche displacements take place are presented, and shortfalls in the correct assessment of the identity and ecological niches of microscopic aquatic eukaryotes, namely phytoplankton, zooplankton, and meiofauna are shown. This opinion paper discusses whether this “niche displacement” effectively occurs between conspecific populations or if the pattern is rather due to an inaccurate identification of species and/or to an insufficient knowledge about population and community ecology. Evidence exists that in different geographical areas allegedly conspecific populations can show different, if not antithetical, ecological requirements and not-overlapping ecological niches. This is especially true for microscopic organisms. However, for the majority of organisms our knowledge about the actual extent of their ecological niche is quite limited.
The analysis of ecological niche is an important task to correctly identify the role exerted by species within ecosystems, to assess their vulnerability, to plan effective measures addressed at fulfilling the postulates of biological conservation, and ultimately to prevent biodiversity loss.
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