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Sometime during Week 25, Hydro said that there is no need for a basic list of niches. I'd argue that's false. Note, the niches listed are not the only niches and only cover what's a given. This post is a work in progress.

Here are some basic niches that will usually be filled in a given biome:

Flora
On Sagan 4, these can be filled by various flora groups. The specific flora groups present will dictate the niches to be filled by fauna.

Land:
• Crusts: Happy to live on a rock or bare dirt, helps break it up and add nutrients as well so new stuff can move in later too.
  Earth Examples: Lichen, some mosses
• Annual plants: The little stuff that pops up once a year when and where conditions are good. Often very r-selected. Can be thought of as the rodents of the plant world.
  Earth Examples: Dandelions
• Ground cover: Self-explanatory. May have adaptations to spread faster or get eaten more slowly than other flora, thus keeping itself as the dominant cover. Probably genusable, and multiple species and genera can coexist. Generally speaking, the ground cover can thrive in poor conditions, though it will still be patchy in certain environments such as deserts.
  Earth Examples: Grass (modern, grows stupidly fast and can regrow when all parts except roots are eaten); horsetails (prehistoric, literally made of glass so eating it destroys your teeth, thus it was eaten less than other plants and could take over)
• Bushes and shrubs: Usually woody plants that can be scattered or clustered in an open biome, either a shrubland or an immature forest, or sometimes dotting a desert.
  Earth examples: Bushes (obviously), smaller cacti
• Sun-loving tree: Large plant that pops up where it can in an open patch of land or a young forest, but doesn't do well if trees that cast a lot of shade start to grow nearby. Scattered in savannas and shrubland, might be found in some plains and deserts.
  Earth examples: Acacia, pines, large cacti technically
• Shade-tolerant tree: Large plant that takes over large patches of land in a biome, keeps others away by casting shadows. Not always actually a tree, can be a shrub if the biome doesn't support large size. Usually absent in desert and plains. Multiple species and unrelated genera can coexist.
  Earth Examples: Oaks and hickory (forests), small oak trees in chaparrals
• Dim light specialists: Plants that can thrive in dimmer light, such as in the shadows of larger plants. Largely absent in deserts and plains.
  Earth Examples: Moss, some ferns
• Low soil quality specialists: Plants that can live in patches of low soil quality (such as from toxic compounds, lack of nitrogen or phosphorus, or simply being too thin) where nothing else but ground cover (and sometimes not even that) can live. Sometimes carnivorous, if the quality is low enough.
  Earth Examples: Tumbleweed, venus fly trap
• Generalist macro decomposers: Like mushrooms. Usually small. Many different kinds can coexist.
  Earth Examples: Mushrooms
• Specialist macro decomposers: Often variants of the decomposers present, especially present in forests. On Earth, this mostly ends up being wood and bone decomposers. On Sagan IV, depending on the flora and fauna present there might also be chitin-wood specialists, flass specialists, etc.
  
  Ocean/Sea:
• Mangrove: Tree which grows in coastline waters and salty/brackish wetlands.
  Earth Examples: Mangroves (obviously)
• Meadow plant: Covers the seabed in sheltered regions, like ground cover.
  Earth Examples: Seagrass
• Submerged forest plant: Tall seaweed (up to a few meters tall) which resides in cool upwelling zones, but can be found in patches elsewhere as well.
  Earth Examples: Kelp
• Sessile planktivore: Anchored organism that eats plankton as water flows over or through it. Usually not a plant, but does not have to be an animal, so I'm not counting it as fauna. If it lives in shallow waters, it might be a planimal.
  Earth Examples: Many cnidarians, sponges, mussels
• Reefbuilder: Sessile planktivore that can build either on top of others or by growing and branching continuously, forming what we know as reefs.
  Earth examples: Corals, some sponges, rudists (prehistoric)
• Hydrogen sulfide chemosynthesis: Larger macro organism which produces food using chemosynthesis, requiring hydrogen sulfide. Broadcast spawner which can settle at vents, cold seeps, and whale falls all over the seafloor.
  Earth Examples: Tube worms
• Methane chemosynthesis: Smaller macroscopic organism which produces food using chemosynthesis, requiring methane. Broadcast spawner which can settle at vents, cold seeps, and whale falls all over the seafloor. May act as ground cover.
  Earth Examples: Bathymodiolus

More (and fauna) to be added.

"Land-breakers: Happy to live on a goddamn rock, helps break it down as well so new stuff can move in later too."
Swearing would be inappropriate for the final version. Admittedly, other countries may not consider it swearing, but it's certainly too strong for an official Sagan 4 context.

"Lichin" is a typo of "Lichen". I recommend turning "genusable" to "genus-able" or "can be turned into a genus".

"Bushes yeah" You meant "bushes (obviously)".

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I recommend adding the following:
Vines & lianas and epiphytes (orchids, Spanish moss, mistletoe)
Hemiparasites & parasites (Cuscuta, Indian paintbrush, Dutchman's pipe)
Cryptobiotic soil crust formers (mosses, lichens) (distinguishable from "dim light specialist", and probably too small to be a typical "ground cover")
Ephemerals (henbit, chickweed, hairy bittercress, groundsel) (Weedy ephemerals in particular are distinguishable from annuals for completing their lifespans in just one growing season, although there are different types of ephemerals.)
Floating Flora (for slow-moving or stagnant water. Includes lotuses and duckweed.)

Endoliths and hypoliths (mosses or lichens that live under translucent rocks, like quartz), could be roles, if perhaps specialized types or sub-types of Land-breakers or Dim Light Specialists. They probably wouldn't be ubiquitous, though I figure they would be common in desert habitats or icy deserts like Antarctica.
There are so many ways to define "low soil-quality" that it would be useful to specify a few, such as "toxic minerals in soil, low nitrogen, low phosophorus, thin soil".