title: Community diversity and environmental stability: A re-examination.
abstract: MacArthur and Levins suggested that species persist by specializing as much as variation in their environments allows, thus avoiding competitive displacement. Accordingly, more species should coexist in stabler environments. Empirical analyses of trade-offs suggest that, indeed, 'the jack of all trades is master of none'. Diversity represents a balance between speciation and extinction. Theory and experiment suggest that competitive overlap hastens a population's extinction. Currently, ecological specialization and environmental stability seem nearly unmeasurable. Nevertheless, new theoretical analyses, and empirical studies of extinction among small populations, may help us to understand how specialization and environmental variation affect a population's susceptibility to extinction.
authors.affiliation: Egbert Leigh is at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 2072, Balboa, Panama.
authors.forename: E G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Leigh