Evolution is a cooperative process: the biodiversity-related niches differentiation theory (BNDT) can explain why.
A. McFayden and G.E. Hutchinson defined a niche as a multidimensional space or hypervolume within the environment that allows an individual or a species to survive, we consider niches as a fundamental ecological variable that regulate species' composition and relation in ecosystems. Successively the niche concept has been associated to the genetic term "phenotype" by MacArthurstressing the importance on what a species or a genome can show outside, either in the environmental functions or in body characteristics. Several indexes have been developed to evaluate the grade of overlapping and similarities of species' niches, even utilizing the theory of information. However, which are the factors that determine the number of species that can coexist in a determinate environment and why a generalist species do not compete until the exclusion of the remaining species to maximize its fitness, is still quite unknown. Moreover, there are few studies and theories that clearly explain why the number of niches is so variable through ecosystems and how can several species live in the same basal niche, intended in a comprehensive sense as the range of basic conditions (temperature, humidity, food-guild, etc.). Here I show that the number of niches in an ecosystem depends on the number of species present in a particular moment and that the species themselves allow the enhancement of niches in terms of space and number. I found that using a three-dimensional model as hypervolume and testing the theory on a Mediterranean, temperate and tropical forest ecosystem it is possible to demonstrate that each species plays a fundamental role in facilitating the colonization by other species by simply modifying the environment and exponentially increasing the available niches' space and number. I resumed these hypothesis, after some preliminary empiric tests, in the Biodiversity-related Niches Differentiation Theory (BNDT), stressing with these definition that the process of niches differentiation is strictly addressed by species. This approach has various consequences, first in consideration of relations among species and second in terms of a better understanding of cooperation/competition dynamics.
Department of Forest Resources and Environment (DISAFRI) Via San Camillo De Lellis, University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy. robertocacazzolla@unitus.it
Roberto Cazzolla
RC
Gatti
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D017753:Ecosystem; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny; D013045:Species Specificity