Talk:Niche construction

message: It's not immediately obvious to me what niches are being created by dam building. Anyone want to add something on that? - Samsara 13:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the edit, WAS 4.250! It's made something clearer in my mind. Niche construction actually refers to the building of new niches, not new instances of the same old niche, and the beaver example to my mind doesn't belong here. I'll change it. - Samsara 01:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Changed my mind again. I guess if it deepens the lake, it could create a niche for, say, a catfish specifically adapted to a greater depth. - Samsara 01:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Beavers often dam rivers that previously had no lakes in that area, creating one from scratch effectively, in order to build their home in the center of it. Also once the dam breaks and the area is abandoned by the beavers it creates marshy areas used by many species that wouldn't normally be found there. Check the beaver page for more detail.
In one way or another all organisms influence their environment, even if its something as simple as the fact that feeding reduces the amount of food avaliable to them in the future. And any change to the environment can be described as niche construction, at least in general terms. Extreme and obvious examples like beaver dams or human houses are just useful examples because they're easier to grasp if you're new to the concept. Danikat 22:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Beavers - niche construction?

message: Has any work been done on comparing Niche Construction with group selection, or critiquing group selection assumptions from a niche construction POV?
Is "group selection" possibly just a form of niche construction, rather than an equivalent to individual Darwinian selection. I.E. populations (landraces?) compete and those "groups/modified enviromental sets" which can provide a better environment for their individuals (says, diseases which another population has no resistance to for example) and so that population benefits?
I.E. can niche construction explain away apparent group selection? Afer all niche construction is not subject to reproductive life-cycle bottleneck at an individual level, and neither is "group selection".
--Meika (talk) 12:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  versus Group Selection 

message: "Differs from the The Extended Phenotype in that the process is not necessarily subject to a reproductive life-cycle bottleneck in the short term (as is the caddis larval case example). The Extended Phenotype cannot be considered a subset of Niche Construction."
Why, for instance, are beaver dams (a classic EP) subject to a reproductive life-cycle bottleneck?  And if NC differes from EP only in not being subject to this constraint (as is implied), why cannot EP be considered a subset of NC?
~~Chris 1955 London 25 May 2010  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris London 1955 (talk • contribs) 11:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs expansion 

message: The figure labeled "Niche Consturction in Evolutionary Time" has an error.  Specifically, the t+2 column claims to show positive niche construction, but it rather shows natural selection (since the organism's phenotype changes (h => t)).  My proposal is to leave the organism's phenotype as h and to change the environment's attribute to H (from T).  Of course, the corresponding changes should be made in columns t+3 and t+4 in order to keep this particular phenotype/environmental attribute constant in subsequent times.  (That is, in columns t+3 and t+4 also change: t => h and T => H.)
For comparison, see the figure that this one is probably modeled after on page 73 of:
"Mapping the future of biology: evolving concepts and theories"
Incidentally, after finally finding a way to edit the PDF myself, I ran into the difficulties of uploading the file to Wikipedia.  I still have the PDF locally.
75.185.218.86 (talk) 02:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Figure Has Errors ("Niche Construction in Evolutionary Time") 

message: It's unclear to me how the concept of niche construction differs from that of an ecosystem engineer. Also it's unclear to me what ecological niche concept niche construction is trying to invoke. It clearly doesn't make any sense under the hutchinsonian niche concept. If one of the primary authors of this article could clarify these points it would be much appreciated.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Taricha (talk • contribs) 02:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Niche Concept