It's not often one hears the term Niche Packing on the BBC. Tonight however the ever informative Chris Packham, holed up in New England gave a super summary of how niche packing works. I don't think I've heard the term since university... the technical term is thus
"A coevolutionary model of species packing is developed that allows evolutionary adjustment in both niche position and within-phenotype niche width of one-three competing species."
In simple terms it just means that over evolutionary time different species adapt to their environment by becoming tuned into their niche within that environment. Whether that be food, competition, resources or any number of variants. As Chris explained the UK has fewer species than New England due to the separation of Britain from the continent before species could cross over the Manche. At University I studied multivariate analysis which looked at exactly this in a given habitat - thus with at the press of a button (and after much leg work gathering data) a numerical number on a Venn diagram gave the answer of spatial separation. A fascinating chapter in my life I'd almost forgotten about. Thanks Chris (nice chap to work with too).
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