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Neutral Community Theory: How Stochasticity and Dispersal-Limitation Can Explain Species Coexistence

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Abstract

Neutral community theory explains biodiversity, i.e. the coexistence of several species, as the result of a stochastic balance between immigration and extinction on a local level, and between speciation and extinction on a regional level. The most popular model, presented by Hubbell in 2001, has seen many analytical developments in recent years, which can be used in model analysis, model testing and model comparison. We review these developments here, and present alternative derivations and shine previously unnoticed lights on them.

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  1. Community and Conservation Ecology Group, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies, University of Groningen, 14, 9750 AA Haren, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Rampal S. Etienne

  2. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, 830 North University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1048, USA

    David Alonso

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Etienne, R.S., Alonso, D. Neutral Community Theory: How Stochasticity and Dispersal-Limitation Can Explain Species Coexistence. J Stat Phys 128, 485–510 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10955-006-9163-2

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