Local speciation can be incorporated into neutral theory of biodiversity

Youhua Chen

Ecological Modelling, 2016, vol. 325, issue C, 67-70

Abstract: In this report, I incorporate local speciation into neutral theory of biodiversity to predict species abundance distribution patterns. By fitting the local-speciation model to the abundance data of tree species in Barro Colorado Island of Panama, the results showed that the new model performed better than the original neutral model without local speciation. Moreover, the estimated local speciation rate (v′=0.0107) was found to be ten-fold larger than the estimated background speciation rate v=0.0011, indicating that local speciation should not be ignored in neutral theory. Given that species across different local habitats and landscapes may present heterogeneous speciation rates, it is valuable to incorporate local speciation into neutral theory to study spatiotemporal patterns of ecological assemblages.

Keywords: Neutral theory; Biodiversity maintenance; Speciation; Statistical ecology; Numerical optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380016000272
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:325:y:2016:i:c:p:67-70

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2016.01.008

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath

More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().