Speaker
Description
The ecological niche concept has shifted in the last decades from broad species-level definitions to include individual-level specialisation. Individuals within a species often differ consistently in behaviour, physiology, and habitat use, giving rise to ‘individualised niches’. These niches can emerge through niche choice, construction, or conformance and are shaped by intrinsic (e.g. condition, cognition) and extrinsic (e.g. social environment, resource distribution) factors. Building on Hutchinson’s niche framework, I propose a method to operationalise individualised niches using simulated and real-world individual GPS tracking data. I distinguish between realised and potential individual niches and explore how intraspecific variation can be quantified through niche overlap and breadth. My approach offers a scalable framework to analyse intraspecific variation and their consequences for population and community-level processes. Understanding individualised niches is essential to link behavioural ecology with conservation and global change biology, and to estimate the success of translocations and rewilding projects.
| Status Group | Postdoctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| FOR TALKS: Poster Presentation Option | Yes, I’m willing to present as a poster. |