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Niche

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Encyclopedia Autopoietica
International Encyclopedia of Systems & Cybernetics

 

Principia Cybernetica (web)
no def.

Encyclopedia Autopoietica
That portion of the ambience with which a living system interacts. "The niche is defined by the classes of interactions into which an organism can enter." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 11) In other words, the organism's "... organization implies a prediction of a niche, and the niche thus predicted as a domain of classes of interaction constitutes its entire cognitive reality.' (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 11) As such, a niche is a functionally-ascribed domain, and it cannot be defined independently of the living system(s) that specifies and realizes it. (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 9) In concurrent and later writings, the notion of the interactional domain so prescribed is typically labeled domain of interactions. In later writings, the notion of a circumscribed 'cognitive reality' is usually denoted by the separate label of cognitive domain.

Based on the qualification with respect to a domain of interactions, "niche" is a construct distinct from environment, which denotes the observer's delineation of the medium in which an organism is observed to operate. "Niche and environment, then, intersect only to the extent that the observer (including instruments) and the organism have comparable organizations, but even then there are always parts of the environment that lie beyond any possibility of intersection with the domain of interactions of the organism, and there are parts of the niche that lie beyond any possibility of intersection with the domain of interactions of the observer." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 10-11)

Cf. cognitive domain, domain of interactions, environment, phenomenological domain

 

International Encyclopedia of Systems & Cybernetics
"That part of the actual environment relevant to the unit’s survival (i.e. its continued organizational closure without desintegration) (R. HARNDEN, 1990, p. 299).

Writes HARNDEN: "…niche has to be separated out from environment in the same process that structured mechanisms relevant to survival become visible in terms of the observer… The first step in handling any complexity is to reduce the general noise of the total environment. Indeed, that is precisely how perceptual and cognitive processes function (e.g. Gestalt)" (p. 300)

In short, the niche is the specific sector in the general environment wherefrom the basic determinisms of the systems do emerge. J.J. GIBSON distinguishes clearly "habitat", from "niche": "A niche refers more to how an animal lives than to where it lives. I suggest that a niche is a set of affordances" (1986, p.128)

In a more specific way and, somewhat surprisingly, giving to the term quite an active sense, the UNESCO – UNEP "Glossary of environmental education terms" defines the ecological niche as follows: "The role status and position of a species in the environment, its activities and relationships to the biotic and abiotic environment" (1983, p.9)

S. MARTINEZ observes "…what is important is the extent to which any growth niche is linked and in what ways to others by invasion, exchange, or incorporation, perhaps even a random encounter" (1993, p. 401)

Niches are not static since its occupants – plants, animals and also human populations, trades, products, techniques or concepts – corss-fertilize, evolve and co-evolve.

Clearly, "niche" is more an ethological than an ecological concept, even if both are interdependent.