Area-heterogeneity tradeoff and the diversity of ecological communities.

ABSTRACT: For more than 50 y ecologists have believed that spatial heterogeneity in habitat conditions promotes species richness by increasing opportunities for niche partitioning. However, a recent stochastic model combining the main elements of niche theory and island biogeography theory suggests that environmental heterogeneity has a general unimodal rather than a positive effect on species richness. This result was explained by an inherent tradeoff between environmental heterogeneity and the amount of suitable area available for individual species: for a given area, as heterogeneity increases, the amount of effective area available for individual species decreases, thereby reducing population sizes and increasing the likelihood of stochastic extinctions. Here we provide a comprehensive evaluatio

SUBMITTER: Allouche O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3491518 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature