Why are there so many species?

✍ Scribed by Edward H. Kerner

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 651 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1522-9602
• DOI: 10.1016/s0092-8240(74)80044-3

✦ Synopsis

It is shown from the statistical-mechanical overview of Volterra's ecological model how to reckon the fluctuations of collective variables such as the total population of a genus: and that these fluctuations are much decreased (or that the collective population steadiness is enhanced) as the speeiation is increased. (A niching of species in time, or phase-niching, is entailed here.) Secondly, it is shown how Preston's log-normal distribution describing the species-abundance relationship, as well as a generalization of such distributions, come forth simply and naturally from the statistical-Volterra-dynamics.