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The Grinnellian niche concept embodies the idea that the niche of a species is determined by the habitat in which it lives and its accompanying behavioral adaptations. In other words, the niche is the sum of the habitat requirements and behaviors that allow a species to persist and produce offspring.
Hutchinson showed that the average body size ratio in species of the same genus that belong to the same community and use the same resource is about 1.3 (from 1.1 to 1.4) and the respective body weight ratio is 2. This empirical pattern tells us that this rule does not apply to all organisms and ecological situations.
Evelyn Hutchinson's famous "Homage to Santa Rosalia" was the next foundational paper in the history of the theory. Its subtitle famously asks, "Why are there so many kinds of animals?", and the address attempts to answer this question by suggesting theoretical bounds to speciation and niche overlap.
Hutchinson defined the niche as an n-dimensional hyper-volume whose dimensions correspond to resource gradients over which species are distributed in a unimodal fashion. In this we see that the operational definition of his niche rests on the fact that a species is needed in order to rationally define a niche in the first place.
George Evelyn Hutchinson ForMemRS (January 30, 1903 – May 17, 1991) was a British ecologist sometimes described as the "father of modern ecology." [2] He contributed for more than sixty years to the fields of limnology, systems ecology, radiation ecology, entomology, genetics, biogeochemistry, a mathematical theory of population growth, art history, philosophy, religion, and anthropology. [3]
According to Hutchinson, he constructed "mathematical models of populations, the changing proportions of individuals of various ages, birthrate, the ecological niche, and population interaction in this technical introduction to population ecology."
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Another major contribution of Hutchinson was his development of the current definition of an organism's "niche" – as he recognized the role of an organism within its community. Finally, along with his great impact within the discipline of ecology throughout his professional years, Hutchinson also left a lasting impact in ecology through his ...