Define niche in ecology and how it differs from habitat.

• A. The physical location outside the environment.
• B. The physical environment where an organism lives.
• C. The role and position a species has in its environment, including resources used, behaviors, and interactions.
• D. The climate space it occupies.

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is what a species does in its ecosystem—the role it plays, including how it uses resources, how it behaves, and how it interacts with other organisms. This is the niche: it’s the ecological job and position of a species, encompassing its diet, activity patterns, predators and competitors, and the way it fits into the food web and environment. Habitat, by contrast, is the physical place where a species lives—the forest, grassland, or coral reef and the local conditions there. So the best description captures the species’ ecological role and the set of resources and interactions it relies on. For example, a beaver’s niche includes building dams and shaping the ecosystem through its behavior and resource use, while its habitat is the freshwater streams and wetlands where it lives. The other options describe location or climate space rather than the organism’s actual role in the ecosystem.