TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial models for species-area curves
AU - Durrett, Rick
AU - Levin, Simon Asher
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Steve Hubbell for sharing his ideas with us\ and Linda Buttel for performing the simulations and making the graphs in Figs 0 3[ We are grateful to referees Alan Hastings and Michael Rosenweig for suggestions and criticisms that inspired us to improve this paper[ Durrett was partially supported by the National Science Foundation and by the Army Research O.ce through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University[ Levin is pleased to acknowledge the support of the Department of Energy through grant DE!FG91!83ER 50704 and the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis! tration through grants NAGW!2013 and NAGW!2630 to Princeton University[
PY - 1996/3/14
Y1 - 1996/3/14
N2 - Inspired by earlier work of Hubbell, we introduce a simple spatial model to explain observed species-area curves. As in the theory of MacArthur and Wilson, our curves result from a balance between migration and extinction. Our model predicts that the wide range of slopes of species-area curves is due to the differences in the rates at which new species enter this system. However, two other predictions, that the slope increases with increasing migration/mutation and that the curves for remote islands are flatter than those for near islands, are at odds with some interpretations of data. This suggests either that the data have been misinterpreted, or that the model is not sufficient to explain them.
AB - Inspired by earlier work of Hubbell, we introduce a simple spatial model to explain observed species-area curves. As in the theory of MacArthur and Wilson, our curves result from a balance between migration and extinction. Our model predicts that the wide range of slopes of species-area curves is due to the differences in the rates at which new species enter this system. However, two other predictions, that the slope increases with increasing migration/mutation and that the curves for remote islands are flatter than those for near islands, are at odds with some interpretations of data. This suggests either that the data have been misinterpreted, or that the model is not sufficient to explain them.
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U2 - 10.1006/jtbi.1996.0053
DO - 10.1006/jtbi.1996.0053
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0029914564
SN - 0022-5193
VL - 179
SP - 119
EP - 127
JO - Journal of Theoretical Biology
JF - Journal of Theoretical Biology
IS - 2
ER -