Habitats is the environment where a living or non-living organism or their community resides and strive. Niches are the role in which an organism’s functions in its ecosystem/environment. The main differences between the habitat and the niche is habitats outline the biotic and abiotic elements where an organism lives, and niches are a construction of things chemical, physical and biological of an organism which are things like food, behavior, surrounding for them to strive. I will attempt to outline the differences and similarities of my personal habitat and assigned niche in Baltimore, Maryland and switching as an Ecologist living in a Tropical rainforest where sloths live.
My name is Monica Hudson and I live in Baltimore, Maryland within the city limits all my life. Baltimore has really, cold winters and steamy hot summers. The fall and spring in Baltimore can be a pleasant 55-75 degrees and at times a little brisk at times where a lite jacket is only needed. Baltimore is surrounded by the Patapsco River which lead to the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay is known for its seafood the Maryland blue crab that we Baltimoreans love basically eating all year round!
Baltimore has two major league teams, that in baseball Baltimore Orioles and NFL football the Baltimore Ravens. We have the Inner Harbor which is a gathering place to shop, eat and entertainment such as the famous Baltimore National Aquarium. The home I reside in is a single family detached home my husband and I purchased in 1995. Let me give you a little information on my personal niche. married to my childhood sweetheart of 28 years, parents of 3 children two daughters and a son and our oldest has 3 daughters and a cat named “Hank”. I drive a Honda Crosstour, I work for a University as a Financial Aid Coordinator administering federal financial aid, attend worship at my family church, attend Purdue Global earning my bachelor’s degree, love crab cakes, traveling, movies and music. Now, let’s switch habitats and niches to talk about switching lives to living in the Tropical Rainforest in Costa Rica which is in Central America.
The temperature is very humid and hot all year round, which Baltimore is only during the summer months. I would be essential to my environment in the rain forest because I’m becoming extinct animal due to what the humans are doing to destroy the rainforest and in Baltimore, we have a high murder rate of us killing us. I would be living on in my personal environment in Baltimore because I have reproduced and had children. I’m an essential part of my family since I must to raise, care, love and nature my family. As for my personal and assigned differences in how they live, the personal one lives in a 4-bedroom home with a roof to shelter her and the assigned one lives in the tall trees of the rainforest.
The niche of Monica the Sloth hangs upside down in the trees, she moves slow, eats plants, birds, small reptiles and leaves. Leaves is not always a good thing for them to eat because she can’t digest it properly since she doesn’t have many teeth but when she loses teeth, they do grow back very quickly which is different from humans. When humans lose their adult teeth, it’s gone for good but false teeth is an option for them, but the assigned niche can grow teeth like the personal niche would grow fingernails and it’s fast. The assigned niche has 9 neck bones and can turn its head 270 degrees, they have no gall bladder or appendix and unlike humans we were born with them but can survive without them if need be.
The survival advantage that both would have while occupying their niche and habitat would be the home verses living in a tree which we now know the assigned is becoming endangered which there is nothing the assigned can do to protecting its environment since humans are destroying the rainforest.
The personal human could adapt to making changes in Baltimore easily but in the habitat of the rainforest would be hard because as a human and she can change her behaviors for the personal environment since its not ideal to living in the wild due to the dangers of rainforest such as dangerous animal, the terrain, scarce food and no having health resource but adjustments can be made in the personal by the clothing and food she eats when there’s a change in the weather if it cold she can add extra layers and if hot less layers or she can be cooled off with water by going for a swim in her backyard pool and if you are eating food that is unhealthy all the time she could change her dieting habits by eating healthy food.
The difficulty in living in the assigned niche would be that I would be living amongst animals that could kill me because they would believe I’m there to hurt them, so they are going to protect themselves from the threat to survive the unknown. Wild animals and humans just don’t mix culturally.
The assigned niche has both biotic and abiotic adaptations sunlight plays a role in keeping them warm, but it also causes some concerns due to their body temperature being low. They don’t do much but just hang upside down in a tree all day and the female will only leave to come down when she wants to mate with its male counterpart or to go to the bathroom let’s say. Water is very necessary for their survival as well. Biotic adaptations named algae can grow on their fur because they don’t clean themselves, but the algae can act a barrier to provide protection and the algae can receive nutrients for their fur. They are herbivores which allows them to eat leaves and buds, they also grow long claws which helps them to hang from trees well. The behavior lifestyle is no use of energy because they move slowly and don’t over eat which having more than one stomach helps their digest to preserve its energy by way of low nutrients
