Niche-Driven Socio-Environmental Linkages and Regional Sustainable Development

Abstract

The changes in niche roles and functions caused by competition for survival resources have implications in various domains, with natural science and social science standing out. Currently, expanding the ecological niche concept and its practical interpretation in the fields of social ecology, geography and sustainable science is becoming a crucial challenge. This paper is based on niche theory to observe niche evolution and resulting socio-ecological effects of 1186 towns in 19 prefecture cities in Yangtze River delta. The results indicate that: Towns around the Taihu Lake displayed obvious spatial agglomeration, which was leading the development of the entire region. The town niche shows obvious characteristics of north-south differences and hierarchy distribution. The niche coordination degree of Jiangsu Province was higher than that of Zhejiang Province. The higher the subsystem coordination degree, the better the town development. Towns with poor ecological conditions are often subject to competition, while towns with better ecological conditions often benefit from cooperative development. The niche separation and collaboration could enhance niche competition of towns and cities in the region. The proposed framework can facilitate interdisciplinary exchanges among geography, sociology, landscape ecology and regional planning and provide insights for understanding regional co-opetition relationship and regional sustainable development.

The Measurement and Spatiotemporal Evolution Analysis of an Ecological Niche for the High-Quality Development of Resource-Based Cities in China

“…According to the interpretation of the concept of ecological niches for the high-quality development of resource-based cities, through the synthesis of the existing relevant research results and previous scholars' understanding and classification of the ecological niche [39][40][41][42], the construction of the niche indicator system for the high-quality development of resource-based cities implies theoretical and practical considerations in three aspects. First, since economic, social, and environmental elements constitute the universal urban system, a vast amount of research concerning the transformation and sustainable development of resource-based cities is mostly based on the economic-social-environmental complex system [43]. Therefore, in this paper, we also selected the niche of economic base, the niche of people's livelihood services and the niche of ecological environment to correspond to ecological niche sub-dimensions.…”

Regional Niche and Spatial Distribution of Foreign Investment in China from 2012 to 2021

“…The ecological gradients interact to influence the degree of niche overlap between species, which surprisingly decreased with a population's total niche-width degree of the niche overlap between species that decreases with a population's total niche width [46]. The competition of living resources leads to the change of niche-overlap role and function, which affects social development [47]. Large simultaneous changes in niche overlap and competitive difference often result in one of the species being excluded [48].…”

Niche Suitability Evaluation and Path Selection for the High-Quality Development of Cities in the Yellow River Basin

“…Whittaker further extended the concept of ecological niche, defining it as the position of a species in its environment and its interrelationship with other species [ 24 ]. With the depth of research, the ecological niche theory has been widely used in the study of inter-species relationships, population evolution, biodiversity, and stability, and applied in the fields of regional development and industrial development [ 25 , 26 , 27 ]. For example, Ji used the ecological niche theory to study the evolution of supply chain clusters [ 28 ], while Huang evaluated the socioeconomic–ecological complex ecosystem of Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration by constructing an index system containing the resource niche, the environmental niche, the economic niche, and the social–ecological niche [ 29 ].…”