Talk:Niche construction

Beavers - niche construction?

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)

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)

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)

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)

versus Group Selection

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)

Needs expansion =

"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