17. Which of the following statements best illustrates the difference between a realized niche and a fundamental niche? (A) The realized niche is the full range of environmental conditions under which a species can survive and reproduce in the absence of competitors or predators, while the fundamental niche is the actual portion of that range the species occupies when biotic interactions are present. (B) The realized niche is limited only by abiotic factors such as temperature and moisture, while the fundamental niche also includes the species' preferred habitat selected through evolutionary adaptation. (C) The realized niche is always larger than the fundamental niche because species evolve to specialize in narrower conditions over time. (D) The realized niche describes where a species currently lives in nature, while the fundamental niche represents the broader conditions it could theoretically tolerate in laboratory experiments. (E) The realized niche and fundamental niche are identical in most species because biotic interactions rarely restrict distribution.