Potential Causes of Vacant Niches
Vacant niches could potentially have several causes.
• Radical disturbances in a habitat: For example, droughts or forest fires can destroy a flora and fauna partially or completely. However, in such cases species suitable for the habitat usually survive in the neighbourhood and colonize the vacated niches, leading to a relatively fast re-establishment of the original conditions.
• Radical and long-lasting changes in the environment: such as ice ages.
• Evolutionary contingencies: suitable species did not evolve for usually unknown reasons, or niche segregation between pre-existing species created a novel niche vacancy.
Read more about this topic: Vacant Niche
Famous quotes containing the words potential and/or vacant:
“The real community of man ... is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers.”
—Allan Bloom (1930–1992)
“In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay
Tribute to ease; and, of its joy secure,
The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,
Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,
And on the vacant air.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)