Question

In nature, why is being a generalist sometimes an advantage over being a specialist?

Answer 1

As far as nature is concerned, an organism who is specialised for a particular habitat and food habits may face life-threatening situation including starvation and lack of nutritious food resources whereas an organism having generalist perspectives can survive in different phases of transformation of nature including adaptation to another habitat and consumption of other food resources if nat found any special one. Thus, they have wider options available to survive in a better way in different environmental conditions. The same is applicable on any tree (vegetation), animals, birds (wildlife) in context with specialist and generalist.

Example- herbivores, carnivores, insectivores, frugivores are specialized in their special diet whereas omnivores can change their diet plan as per the availability of food resources viz. Coyote, Raccoons

Thus, being a generalist has an advantage over being a specialist.