On the origin and robustness of power-law species–area relationships in ecology
- *Department of Physics and
- ‡Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801
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Edited by Simon A. Levin, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved May 12, 2006 (received for review January 14, 2006)
Abstract
We present an explanation for the widely reported power-law species–area relationship (SAR), which relates the area occupied by a biome to the number of species that it supports. We argue that power-law SARs are a robust consequence of a skewed species abundance distribution resembling a lognormal with higher rarity, together with the observation that individuals of a given species tend to cluster. We show that the precise form of the SAR transcends the specific details of organism interactions, enabling us to characterize its broad trends across taxa.
Footnotes
- §To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: nigel{at}uiuc.edu
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↵ †Present address: Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, 2800 Mitchell Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94598.
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Author contributions: H.G.M. and N.G. designed research; H.G.M. performed research; H.G.M. analyzed data; and H.G.M. wrote the paper.
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Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
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This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.
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↵ ¶ Ostling, A. & Harte, J. (2000) Science 290, 671 (technical comment).
- Abbreviations:
- SAR,
- species–area relationship.
Abbreviation:
- © 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
