We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Density dependence explains tree species abundance and diversity in tropical forests.
- Authors
Volkov, Igor; Banavar, Jayanth R; He, Fangliang; Hubbell, Stephen P; Maritan, Amos
- Abstract
The recurrent patterns in the commonness and rarity of species in ecological communities--the relative species abundance--have puzzled ecologists for more than half a century. Here we show that the framework of the current neutral theory in ecology can easily be generalized to incorporate symmetric density dependence. We can calculate precisely the strength of the rare-species advantage that is needed to explain a given RSA distribution. Previously, we demonstrated that a mechanism of dispersal limitation also fits RSA data well. Here we compare fits of the dispersal and density-dependence mechanisms for empirical RSA data on tree species in six New and Old World tropical forests and show that both mechanisms offer sufficient and independent explanations. We suggest that RSA data cannot by themselves be used to discriminate among these explanations of RSA patterns--empirical studies will be required to determine whether RSA patterns are due to one or the other mechanism, or to some combination of both.
- Publication
Nature, 2005, Vol 438, Issue 7068, p658
- ISSN
1476-4687
- Publication type
Journal Article
- DOI
10.1038/nature04030