Why do so many species live in tropical forests and co...(e in real life adaptation to niches is a...)
e, in real life, adaptation to niches is an obvious feature of living creatures. For example, polar bears are adapted to the chilly niche of the Arctic, not to the sultry niche of the tropics. Still, Hubbell's findings hinted that the abundance of species and the development of ecological communities and ecosystems owe more to chance processes, and less to biology, than previously had been assumed.
Since 2001, numerous researchers have published the results of field tests of Hubbell's theory, based on their analyses of life forms and habitats such as tropical forests, North American birds, tropical reef fishes and corals, marine benthic communities in intertidal zones, and pollen records of eastern North American during the Holocene. Test results have varied from strongly positive to strongly negative. Some groups have disagreed in their interpretations of the same data.
In March 2006, Maria Dornelas of James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and her colleagues published in Nature their study of coral-reef communities in the Indian and Pacific oceans. They found the coral-reef species in various local communities differ from each other far more than expected by neutral theory, and they exhibit RSA patterns that are quite distinct from those of tropical forests. The Nature article was titled "Coral Reef Diversity Refutes the Neutral Theory of Biodiversity." In their new Nature article, Volkov et al. reply to this latest challenge by arguing that the Dornelas team's thesis is invalid because the spatial structure and degree of isolation of coral-reef communities is different from those of tropical forests. In their latest paper, Banavar, Maritan, Volkov, and their collaborators have reanalyzed the Dornelas dataset and have concluded that it and measurements of rainforest species are compatible with an extended version of neutral theory in which all species are equivalent and do not interact with each other or the environment. Their
'/>"/>
| Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy science@psu.edu 814-863-4682 Penn State Source:Eurekalert |
Related biology news :
1. New species from old data
2. New Clues Add 40,000 Years to Age of Human Species
3. Ants Genetic Engineering Leads To Species Interdependency
4. Same mutation aided evolution in many fish species, Stanford study finds
5. Fibril Shape Is The Basis Of Prion Strains And Cross-species Prion Infection
6. Reservoirs may accelerate the spread of invasive aquatic species, researchers say
7. Small species back-up giant marsupial climate change extinction claim
8. Aggressive aquatic species invading Great Lakes
9. A New Species of Monkey is Discovered in Tanzania: The First in Africa for More Than 20 Years
10. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are now species of slime-mold beetles -- but strictly in homage
11. Internet viruses help ecologists control invasive species
 Why do so many species live in tropical forests and coral reefs? |
| Copyright © 2003-2009 Bio-Medicine. All rights reserved. ABOUT | CONTACT US | DISCLAIMER | PRIVACY POLICY | TERMS AND CONDITIONS |  |