Niche Construction

Niche construction is a concept in evolutionary biology that describes how organisms shape and modify the environment in which they live. It describes how species interact with the environment, including how the species’ activities can in turn influence the environment. In this way, organisms not only respond to their environment, but also actively shape it. Niche construction has important implications for evolutionary theory, as it offers an additional source of variation to natural selection and an additional factor to consider in understanding the evolution of living things. In addition, it is increasingly being used to understand ecological communities, as it can offer insight into how species interact with one another and how they influence each other’s distributions and abundances. Finally, niche construction is also used to study how humans interact with the environment, and how our activities to shape our environment can influence the evolution of non-human species.