Biology · Organisms and Populations · NEET
No. Habitat is the physical place where an organism lives, like the pond or the forest floor. Niche is the functional role that organism plays there: its food, its way of getting energy, its timing of activity, and its interactions with other species. One habitat can hold many niches. Example: a pond is one habitat, but the fish, the frog, and the algae each fill a different niche.
Functional role means the job the organism does in the ecosystem. It covers what it eats, who eats it, what resources it uses (light, space, prey), when it is active (day or night), and how it links to other species. For NEET, the exact NCERT idea is: niche is the functional role played by the organism where it lives.
No, not indefinitely. By Gause's Competitive Exclusion Principle, two closely related species competing for the same limiting resources in the same niche cannot co-exist for long; the weaker competitor is eliminated. To co-exist they must partition resources (like lions taking larger prey and leopards smaller prey), which slightly separates their niches.
Because NEET sets a direct trap. The answer key wants 'functional role played by the organism where it lives'. The option 'the physical space where an organism lives' describes HABITAT, not niche, and is a common wrong pick. Learn the one-line NCERT definition word-for-word.
A niche is shaped by an organism's interactions (competition, predation, mutualism). Constant, predictable environments like the tropics allow finer niche specialisation, which lets more species pack in and raises species diversity. So niche is the link between how a species lives and how many species an ecosystem can hold.
Niche is
Try the real previous-year questions from this chapter — each with the answer and a full solution.
It is the functional role a species plays in its ecosystem: what it uses, how it gets energy, and how it interacts, in the place where it lives.
Habitat is the physical place where an organism lives; niche is the job or functional role it performs there. Address vs job.
Not for long. Gause's Competitive Exclusion Principle says two species competing for the same limiting resources in the same niche cannot co-exist indefinitely.
Stable, predictable environments allow finer niche specialisation, so more species can co-exist, raising species diversity, as seen in the tropics.
NEET uses 'functional role played by the organism where it lives'. Memorise this exact NCERT phrase.
