Biodiversity is autocatalytic

Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Wim Hordijk and Stuart Kauffman

Ecological Modelling, 2017, vol. 346, issue C, 70-76

Abstract: A central question about biodiversity is how so many species can coexist within the same ecosystem. The idea that ecological niches are critical for the maintenance of species diversity has received increasing support recently. However, a niche is often considered as something static, preconditioned, and unchanging. With the “Biodiversity-related Niches Differentiation Theory” (BNDT), we recently proposed that species themselves are the architects of biodiversity, by proportionally increasing the number of potentially available niches in a given ecosystem.

Keywords: Autocatalytic sets; Ecological niches; Biodiversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:346:y:2017:i:c:p:70-76

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2016.12.003

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