Northeast Squirrels This paper is based on natural habitat settings, excluding the effects of urbanization and how that could influence how populations interact with each other in regards to community behavior and the expectations that each species should pertain while sustaining itself within any giving niche, but then again that could affect the behavior and habitat range for any species in general.
An assemblage is a community of sympatric populations of overlapping habitats. A good example are squirrels in the Northeastern United States. Fox squirrels(Scirus niger) and gray squirrels(S. carolinesis) although share similar habitats, the way they are distributed are quite different across the region(Derge and Yahner 355). Fox squirrels dwell more on the edges of forests, whereas gray squirrels tend to move inwards, also fox squirrels prefer habitats with smaller percentage of small shrubs versus habitat space(355). Another aspect Derge and Yahner would mention that has made the assemblage a success is the fact that the two species are possibly active during different parts of the day, so as not to impede on localized resources and
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Genetic variation within these two species contrast in how traits were acquired during the glaciation periods. The gray squirrel drifted into many populations with little to no gene flow across those populations, while the fox squirrel maintained a level of constant gene flow across a single population with smaller divergent points(Moncrief et al.1247).The importance of genetic variation across a species in general, greatly increases an organisms ability to adapt to environmental change overtime as well as be less susceptible to disease. The variance in genes could be relevant in how large the range for each individual species in their search in availability for suitable habitat