The maximum entropy formalism and the idiosyncratic theory of biodiversity.
Why does the neutral theory, which is based on unrealistic assumptions, predict diversity patterns so accurately? Answering questions like this requires a radical change in the way we tackle them. The large number of degrees of freedom of ecosystems pose a fundamental obstacle to mechanistic modelling. However, there are tools of statistical physics, such as the maximum entropy formalism (MaxEnt), that allow transcending particular models to simultaneously work with immense families of models with different rules and parameters, sharing only well-established features. We applied MaxEnt allowing species to be ecologically idiosyncratic, instead of constraining them to be equivalent as the neutral theory does. The answer we found is that neutral models are just a subset of the majority of plausible models that lead to the same patterns. Small variations in these patterns naturally lead to the main classical species abundance distributions, which are thus unified in a single framework.
Pueyo
Salvador
S
Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. spueyo@ub.edu
He
Fangliang
F
Zillio
Tommaso
T
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D019277:Entropy; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011157:Population Dynamics; D013045:Species Specificity
Trends Ecol Evol. 2006 Aug;21(8):451-7
16766082
Ecol Lett. 2007 Mar;10(3):188-96
17305802
Am Nat. 2002 Jan;159(1):1-23
18707398
Theor Popul Biol. 1974 Oct;6(2):217-50
4445976
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Jul 27;101(30):10854-61
15243158
Bull Math Biol. 1983;45(2):287-93
6882960
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jan 16;104(3):864-9
17215353
Nature. 2005 Dec 1;438(7068):658-61
16319890
J Theor Biol. 2007 Oct 7;248(3):522-36
17640675
Phys Rev E Stat Phys Plasmas Fluids Relat Interdiscip Topics. 2000 Dec;62(6 Pt B):8466-84
11138149
Math Biosci. 1996 Mar;132(2):169-83
8714412
Theor Popul Biol. 2004 Feb;65(1):67-73
14642345
Theor Popul Biol. 1998 Dec;54(3):294-302
9878606
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2003 Dec;68(6 Pt 1):061902
14754229
Science. 2006 Nov 3;314(5800):812-4
17023613
Ecol Lett. 2005 Nov;8(11):1147-56
21352438
Am Nat. 2002 Jul;160(1):60-73
18707499
Nature. 2003 Apr 24;422(6934):881-5
12692564
Ecol Lett. 2005 May;8(5):493-504
21352453
Nature. 2003 Aug 28;424(6952):1035-7
12944964
Am Nat. 2003 Nov;162(5):544-57
14618534
Science. 2006 Jan 27;311(5760):527-31
16439661
Am Nat. 1998 Mar;151(3):264-76
18811357
Science. 2006 Nov 3;314(5800):770-2
17082444
Nature. 2006 Dec 14;444(7121):926-8
17167485