02-D Habitat vs. Niche

You can think of an organism’s niche as its “role” or “job” in the community. The niche includes the sum of the organism’s functions, abilities and tolerances. It is possible to describe the niche as a sort of “job description” for a species, as you might see in a classified ad: “Applicant will be required to travel in herd, drink through nose and knock down trees for food” could only describe the job of an elephant! By contrast, a habitat is simply the type of place where an organism or species normally lives. Based upon this information, label each of the following as describing a habitat or a niche.