Submitted by eastoid_ t3_yqadzb in askscience
I've noticed lately that when I walk through the city, I can often see four species of corvids at the same time- magpies, hooded crows, rooks and jackdaws, often just within few dozen meters from each other.
There is a lot of bird species around, but they usually have their own things - some keep to water, some to parks or some wild areas, they have different beaks, diets etc. I would guess pigeons are wildly successful because they eat anything and reproduce a lot. They did push out sparrows out of the city in the last 20-30 years (though I understand there were other factors as well, like pollution).
But those city corvids have very similar diets, they're all very intelligent- how do they occupy the same space without one species dominating their niche and pushing others away? Why isn't the biggest one, or the smartest one, or the most cooperative winning? Or maybe they are more different than I think?
RoadBudget t1_iw0zlj2 wrote
They may each have a slightly different niche. Even though they look like they’re doing the same thing, it may be different enough that they’re not stepping on each others’ toes. There’s a classic example I remember from ecology where there were a number of bird species living in gem same tree, but they were all using different parts of it, hence they had different niches.