托福口语 Task 4

Today we're going to talk about a fascinating concept in animal behavior called 'temporal niche partitioning.' This is when different species that share the same habitat reduce competition by using the same resources at different times of the day or year. Let me give you two examples. First, consider two species of hawks that live in the same forest and both hunt small rodents. The red-tailed hawk hunts primarily during the morning hours, while the great horned owl—well, it's actually a raptor, not a true hawk—hunts at night. Because they hunt at different times, they don't directly compete for the same prey at the same moment, even though their diets overlap. Now, for a second example, look at two types of desert rodents: kangaroo rats and pocket mice. Both eat seeds and live in the same desert area. But kangaroo rats are active mainly on moonlit nights, when they can avoid predators, while pocket mice are more active on dark nights. By being active on different nights, they reduce competition for seeds and also avoid the risk of both being caught by the same predator on the same night. So in both cases, the animals exploit the same resources but at different times, allowing them to coexist.