Abstract
Students from the Leonard Wills Field Centre study the distribution patterns of certain common shore animals and plants in a site where a small freshwater stream flows across a gently-sloping boulder shore. Distribution patterns measured in the field are compared with the activity patterns shown by animals in laboratory experiments using water of different salinities. The exercise is used to illustrate the concepts of ‘potential niche’, ‘optimal niche’ and ‘realized niche’ through the analogy of Sinker's n-dimensional fried egg. Data obtained from this exercise were subsequently utilized as the basis of a computer simulation of the habitat.
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