Unifying ecology and macroevolution with individual-based theory.

ABSTRACT: A contemporary goal in both ecology and evolutionary biology is to develop theory that transcends the boundary between the two disciplines, to understand phenomena that cannot be explained by either field in isolation. This is challenging because macroevolution typically uses lineage-based models, whereas ecology often focuses on individual organisms. Here, we develop a new parsimonious individual-based theory by adding mild selection to the neutral theory of biodiversity. We show that this model generates realistic phylogenies showing a slowdown in diversification and also improves on the ecological predictions of neutral theory by explaining the occurrence of very common species. Moreover, we find the distribution of individual fitness changes over time, with average fitness increasing a

SUBMITTER: Rosindell J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4403962 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature