The stability of forest biodiversity
- 1 February 2004
- journal article
- editorial
- Published by Springer Nature in Nature
- Vol. 427 (6976) , 696
- https://doi.org/10.1038/427696a
Abstract
The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography provides a dynamic null hypothesis for the assembly of natural communities. It is also useful for understanding the influence of speciation, extinction, dispersal and ecological drift on patterns of relative species abundance, species-area relationships and phylogeny. Clark and McLachlan argue that neutral drift is inconsistent with the palaeorecord of stability in fossil pollen assemblages of the Holocene forests of southern Canada. We show here that their analysis is based on a partial misunderstanding of neutral theory and that their data alone cannot unambiguously test its validity.Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
- Neutral theory and relative species abundance in ecologyNature, 2003
- Stability of forest biodiversityNature, 2003
- Identification of refugia and post-glacial colonisation routes of European white oaks based on chloroplast DNA and fossil pollen evidenceForest Ecology and Management, 2002
- Reid's Paradox of Rapid Plant MigrationBioScience, 1998