Niche

Summary

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Understand the concept of niche and you can provide it for your crops and remove it for your pests. In the process you will have fewer problems and more successes.

Graziers and farmers aim to provide good niches for the organisms they want (cattle, wheat, apples, sheep etc).

At the same time they want to make it difficult for any undesirables (weeds, insect pests, diseases, parasites etc) to find or establish their own niches.

This may involve filling a niche with a desirable species so that is not available for an undesirable species.

A niche is more than just the place where the organism fits physically. It is also the organism's function in the community of plants, animals and other organisms.

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What this means

Niche is set by

where it lives
what conditions it can cope with such as
- the pH and
- climatic conditions
what the organism avoids or is harmed by, such as pests, daylight or exposed areas
how it modifies its surroundings
what the organism eats
what it competes with
how it behaves
what lives on the organism
what eats the organism and so on.

Habitat is similar to niche, but refers to place rather than function. So an organism's habitat might be

in the litter layer of a forest
at ground level in a grassland or
under the soil in a cropping field.

The niche of that same organism in that same habitat is its status in relation to

its food
its enemies or pests
and its role, including
- what it is doing
- its inputs
- and its outputs.

One way to get a better handle on niche is to think of it as like a person's place in their life, in their work and in society, there is

the place where the person lives
the conditions that person can cope with such as
- housing
- noise
- temperature and so on
the climatic conditions indoors or outdoors in cold through to hot climates
what that person avoids or is harmed by
how that person modifies their surroundings
what that person eats and consumes in other ways: fossil fuels, water, space, food, roads, medical and other services etc
how that person affects others around them, both positively (supporting a family, the results of their work and their community work) and negatively (noise, pollution, resource usage, environmental damage etc).
what that person competes with including
- other people who might want to use the resources this person consumes
- other organisms who might otherwise live in the water that is used in the household or at the workplace
- future generations who might be deprived of those resources such as fossil fuels
- other people who might want that land
how that person behaves
- what that person contributes to society (food grown, work done for the local or broader community etc)
- the job the person does (farmer, lawyer, laborer)
what lives on that person
what eats that person - when they are alive or after they die when they have a different niche - perhaps under the ground

You may find two species in one spot but they will not stay in the same niche for long, they will generally need to exploit different things in that environment.

If they were competing in the same niche, one would get squeezed out by the other that had some slight advantage under those conditions. Perhaps one of them would not survive well enough to reproduce as successfully or its offspring would not establish as successfully in competition with the offspring of the other. For example

Unless you keep pushing the balance in favor of your crops, weeds will steadily overtake that field. This is because they have a niche there. Crops, livestock and pastures only have a niche while humans provide it, unless they are native to that area
Two species that seem to live in the same niche will have different diets, functions or relationships to their environment. They may:
- eat different things although they both live in the same place. Or
- eat the same things such as two types of blood suckers in different places - one living inside an animal, the other on the animal's skin.
An earthworm occupies a particular position in the soil and carries out certain functions in the soil. It is dependent on many other organisms, sources of food and on a variety of soil conditions to survive, let alone thrive in that niche. If another organism is a more successful competitor for the earthworm's food supply then the earthworm may need to move sideways to find food, may go dormant until things improve or it may die.

That's the food side of niche competition, but other conditions also affect the worm:
- Compaction by animals or machinery
- the soil becoming too acid
- soil getting too hot
- the soil drying out
- the soil becoming waterlogged for too long
- the weather becoming too cold
- the soil becoming too saline
- overcrowding leading to a fall in nutrients that brings on starvation and so on.

As a result, the earthworm is at the mercy of anything that destroys or takes over its niche.

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Using this

Niche comes from the Latin word "nidus" meaning nest.
It also means a little nook in a wall where people put statues etc.

Many of the problems of modern agriculture come down to niche problems.

Where there is a weed there is a niche that is better for weeds than for crops.
Where pests damage plants, animals or microbes, the niche is more suited to the pests than the beneficial organisms.

So, changing the niche conditions to suit the farmer instead of the pest will move the balance back towards profit.

If you have significant problems with pests, it is most likely that your management of niches is out of line with what you are trying to achieve.

Sometimes the easiest way to reduce the problem you're having with pests is to change the way you manage the niches you are providing.

Often this will involve only simple and easy changes. But, sometimes this requires a major shift in your farming, because your main crop and the way you manage it are providing ideal conditions for your biggest pest.

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Taking this further

you have big problems with a particular pest on a particular crop

OR
one of your main crops struggles to deliver the results you consider reasonable

OR
one of your main crops struggles to deliver the results that neighbors get

Then

your crop and the way you manage it may be providing ideal conditions for your biggest pest.

And it is probably time to rethink how you approach your crops and your pests.

If you are looking at a printed version of this page and you would like to visit it on the internet and get a stack of other info that may assist you, the full web address is
http://www.OrganicExchange.com.au/all/fc910071.htm

Related info:

Beat pests by using advantage

Using SWOT to beat a major weed

Do weeds come to heal the soil?

Weed control without chemicals

SWOT analysis to boost profit

Learning from pests

Understanding the causes of weed problems

Weed control without chemicals

Ground cover

Choosing a farming course and teacher

Selective grazing

Allelopathy

Green manures in orchards and vineyards

Pasture legumes are special

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